When fiction, baby goat sweaters, and chatty Fed Ex guys collide

I promised my friend that I would knit sweaters for his baby goats. His goat was pregnant, but I had no idea what the gestational period was for a goat. I figured I had time, though, because as I remembered, pregnancy basically lasts forever.

Except when you're a goat. I'd just proudly completed one sweater, when I woke up to photos of the brand new baby goats on Facebook Monday morning... so I cast on and knit like the wind! The baby goats will be cold! I must discharge my duty! My needles were flying! I knit standing up, while making lunch, through hula class. I wisely chose not to knit while driving. And then I finished with sore fingers and a big sigh of relief just in time to mail the sweaters off that same day. We went straight from hula where I'd had to weave in ends with my bare hands because I forgot my needle and Boop was still swishing her hips next to me and eyeing the candy counter while I eyed the Ground Delivery truck getting ready to leave in the parking lot. I plopped the sweaters on the counter and looked for help.

Which I got from a very chatty Fed Ex guy. The goat sweaters were quirky enough. I figured that would buy me enough small talk to get the package on the truck and race home to make dinner.

But no, we got to chatting about how he plays online games with his kids, and I mentioned that I did, too, all the while filling out address forms and declining insurance (the money's in the fingers!). He asked which games I played. I rattled them off. (Driving Kids anyone? MMPORGs for the 3 year old set are all the rage, especially when narrated by robots with indiscernible accents.) He knew them all. Wow, he'd never met anyone who gamed with their kids like he did. So to lend a little credibility, I mentioned that I'd worked testing video games for a while. Wouldn't want him to think I was telling tales. That job was for about 9 months about 7 years ago, and I used a lot of the experience in the YA noir book that an agent is reading *right now*.

So, he said he play tested games for EA and rattled off all the titles he worked on - where did I work? What titles did I work on?

Now in my defense, I had been knitting frantically all day, and Boop was twirling closer and closer to the Red Vines, but I tell you the only things that came to mind was the name of the company my main character worked for and all the fictional games he'd tested. Not a single real title could I recall. I nearly blurted out "The Virtz" which I'd subbed in for The Sims, but had never actually tested. Five more came to mind, all fictional. I managed to describe the company, but the only name I could think of was Playbox Labs. And we all know there's no such thing as a Playbox, folks.

I'm sure there's a moral here. Maybe - always find out the gestational period of a goat.