Bureaucratic Magic

Yesterday I was waiting with a friend for some prescriptions at a pharmacy particularly known for its bureaucratic nature and he told me, "they said 30 to 45 minutes, so in reality it could be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half."
We talked about running some errands and coming back later, but I thought that sounded like too much running around. So we settled into our chairs to read, knit and wait. I was starting my second fetching handwarmer and mid-way through the second cable row I realized that I'd forgotten to reverse the direction of the cables.
My friend patted my head and I tore back the 5 or so rows that were required to get back to the first cable row. No sooner than I'd turned my knitting into a pile of yarn in my lap did his name come up on the message board.
I'd committed to waiting for a while and they were done... magic!
And he had to wait for me for a bit as I could not just tuck the tangle of yarn into my bag.