Collateral Damage

It all began innocently enough.  I should be paying myself a nickel for every idea that begins with the words "I'll Just..." 
"I'll just turn all these silly little ideas into a book!" 
"I'll just take care of the housework in my spare time!" 
"I'll just reupholster all the living room furniture myself!"

I should know better, but clearly I do not:

"I'll just do a little rolled hem, using that color of green that I really don't like and then I will like it!"
 

Yeah.  This is the view from my lap yesterday morning.  Total Carnage.  The further I got from that Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem, the more I hated it.  To make things worse, the cast-on I chose (albeit, hastily - is there any other way?) was keeping the edge from rolling right.  The hurrier I went, the more I hated the innocent bystander that was this poor sweater vest.  I told myself "Time's a wastin and them sweaters don't knit theirselves!  Press on and it'll grow on you!  Deadline's A-Comin!"

I still hated that Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem.  It smirked at me; lying there and refusing to roll up in the jaunty way I had envisioned. 

"HA HA: I'm ugly and you don't have time to frog 6 inches of otherwise unoffending border just to get to me!" 

Okay, the mocking tone might have been my imagination, but by this time I did not like anything the sweater had to say to me.  It was time to toughen up and admit the truth to myself:  "You hate this thing, and neither time nor effort is going to endear it to you, so suck it up and fix the problem.  You know what you have to do."

Ever frogged from the bottom up?  If so, you already know what happened.  If not, imagine trying to untie a spider's web and wind it into a perfect center-pull skein.  There are things in this universe that are not meant to work in reverse:  Bananna peels, the digestive tract of a Scottish Terrier, and the IRS are all good example of things that really don't go backwards very well.  Add Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem to the list:

Do not be fooled by this picture into thinking it was a simple matter of pulling on one end of the string, like opening a bag of dog food.  It was Ghastly.  Every few stitches had to be cut, and then getting hold of the shrapnel to yank it free was only possible with the aid of tweezers.  It was enough to make me reassess my whole hatred of the Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem in the first place.  But having both reached and passed the point of no return (loosely defined as any time scissors make aggressive contact with knitting) there was nothing for it but to press on.

Ultimately, I prevailed.  The Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem has been usurped by the Way Less Stupid Mulled Wine Rolled Hem, to wit:

The new and improved version has the added bonus of not sporting the ugly-ass, non-rolling weirdo cast-on problem suffered by its predecessor.  No, this little gem curls up jauntily, proclaiming to all:  "I came.  I Frogged.  I emerged Victorious." 

Now I'll just...