Babies, Blankets, Yarn, and Little Old Ladies

I'm crocheting a baby blanket for a friend who's unborn baby has problems. He has club feet and something wrong with his bladder that will require surgery as soon as he arrives in late October. I began the blanket back in June and worked on it itermitently between other projects. Its a beautiful baby blue with dark blue flecks and softer than a baby's bottom. I just know if my brand new baby was going to have to endure pain I would want the softest thing I could find to wrap him in.

I orginally bought 6 balls of yarn at about $6 a piece. Yeah, I could probably have bought a blanket cheaper but I wanted to make her one. Well, 6 balls of yarn have gotten me to about 3 foot by 2 foot, not nearly a baby blanket. So, I go back to the Yarn Barn and look around. I can find the brand but not the right color. Finally, one of the 6 or so women, all over the age of 65, that work there ask me if she can be of assistance. I explain what I'm looking for and give her the label off my last ball. She tells me she will check in the back and she's pretty sure they have it.

So I wander around, looking at patterns and feeling yarn. And some 10 minutes go by. I begin to think maybe she can't remember who I am amid the other yarn shoppers so I go stand by the register. Finally a different retiree asks if I'm the one looking for baby blue yarn with dark specks. Yes, thank you very much, I tell her. She then tells me that the women who was helping me has taken a very nasty fall. I ask if she'll be ok and she tells me that she doesn't know.

This blanket has now cost me around $100 and a little old lady. How do my best intentions go so far astray?