True story: this morning whilst working on my Waves Scarf, I realized that I forgot my cable needle at home (doh!) because it’s currently stuck in my Amadeus in progress. And I’m not clever enough yet to learn cabling without a cable needle.
I literally scoured my knitting bag and purse, looking for a random dpn or stitch holder or pen or pencil or SOMETHING to use as a cable needle (my Chibi needles were too short) (yes I actually considered using those!), but turned up nothing that was small enough in diameter, yet long enough so that the stitches wouldn’t fall off. What’s a knitter to do? I didn’t have to be at work for another half hour and didn’t want to lose precious knitting time!
So I ran over to Wal-Mart and bought some dpns. 
They didn’t have any cable needles, but the dpns work perfectly! Plus I now have an extra set of size 3s, which will come in handy the next time I knit sportweight socks. 
Actually, I was surprised that W-M had dpns at all because the store in the town I used to live in didn’t have any, just straight needles. So that was a pleasant surprise.
But really…am I just a wee bit addicted to knitting, do you think? Just a tad? 
I never shop at Walmart – I didn’t even know they had needles. But you are inventive! I can’t imagine wasting 1/2 hour when I had knitting to do either!
i once used a paperclip for the same purpose. i just bent it straight and it worked okay (with patience).
wow, Walmart had size 3s? That’s actually really cool! I use dpns for cable needles all of the time!
I don’t even own a real cable needle, hehe. I’ve used pencils, kp needle tips, just about anything, but I’m pretty much done with separate cable needles anyway, it takes waaaay too long! I figured out needleless cabling when I made Trellis, it was just too frustrating to keep switching stitches around. It’s not hard, you just have to make sure you don’t drop stitches, but it’s pretty easy to fix even if you do. I wish I had a better video camera, b/c I want to make a video of how I do it 
Elspeth: I don’t prefer to buy knitting needles at Wal-Mart normally, but none of the yarn shops were open at 8 AM this morning!
Lisa: that is a great idea!
I didn’t have one at the time, otherwise I probably would have done the same!
kc: seriously! I think they only had a couple sets and I got one of them, hehe. I keep intending to learn the needle-less method but haven’t gotten around to it. This morning’s needle crisis could have been averted, had I known how to do it without the needle! oops
A video would be nice…hint hint! Maybe knittinghelp.com has one?
Yep, my Walmart got dpns in about 6 months ago. The odd thing is they only have them in size 3!