Being a middle school teacher, I have always been aware of the cult cartoon Invader Zim. For those who do not know, this cartoon follows Zim, a very angry, very short (can anyone say Napoleonic Complex?) alien and his malfunctioning robot sidekick Gir as they tray to take over a "dark and cynical" version of Earth. Despite his odd "human disguise," (in which he has no ears) the only human capable of recognizing Zim for what he is is Dib, a 12-year-old conspiracy theorist who has cried wolf so many times that no one believes him.
As I was watching this for the first time the other night, I came to the realization that Zim knits. Of course he does. He learned while he was in exile in Foodcourtia. Now, like all other endeavors, he approaches his projects with enough zeal and enthusiasm to get it done, but he overshoots himself skill-wise. That is why he as been working in the same fair-isle sweater for 9 years. Smaller, less complicated projects harbor no interest for him.
Gir the robot crochets. Since he was manufactured with leftover parts and is always portrayed as slightly lop-sided, so it makes perfect sense that does a craft that involves mainly one hand. Now what does he crochet, you ask? Scarves. Gir crochets scarves, of all widths and lengths out of literally whatever medium he can get his little robots paws on. This would be a reason why a lot of Zim's plans do not work; he has no materials to build from because anything with the remotest amount of flexibility has been used up as a scarf Gir crocheted last week. Once in a while, he will crochet something immensely intricate, like an amigurumi of himself or an afghan. We will never see the fruits of his more complex endevors, because he immdiantly gives them away to the first person on the street who hugs him.
Finally, we come to Dib. Poor Dib, like all Earthlings, neither knits nor crochets. This is reason, perhaps, that he is always so angry. This is also a valid explanation to the root of his obsession with the paranormal, the supernatural, and conspiracies. In the time he commits to these non-activities, he could atleast have knited, say, a hat, thus beating Zim at something.
