Shoes

I was drinking coffee this morning with my wife Jilda. She was looking at the mountain of catalogs we received the previous day and she spotted a pair of shoes that looked as if they were made for me. I glanced at the shoes and pointed out that I already have a black pair of shoes and a brown pair of shoes and I didn’t see the need for any more. She looked at me as if I had a hatchet buried to the hilt in my forehead.

My wife has this thing for shoes. I can tell when she is looking at shoes in a catalog, because her eyes glaze over and she gets this lustful smile on her face.

Not sure why women need so many shoes. The last time I opened her closet door, an avalanche of shoes spilled out - walking shoes, running shoes, pumps, flats, black, blue, red, green and brown. She’s got boots, sandals, flip-flops, and clogs.

Every time we go shopping, I look for bookstores, music stores, Radio Shack, or Home Depot but she heads directly for the shoe store. And if there is a half-price sale, instead of buying one pair and saving half price, she buys four pairs.

When I mentioned that I might write my column this week about shoes, she looked at me menacingly, and gave me that “fool with me mister and you’ll be eating sardines and baked beans out of a can.” She is a great cook, and I look forward to home-cooked meals each evening, so I may be dancing with the devil by writing these words.

Another interesting thing about my wife is all the stuff in her bathroom. Thank goodness, we have two bathrooms; otherwise, I’d be shaving in the kitchen sink.

There are containers of moisturizer, concealors, foundation, mascara, eye shadow, eye cream, lipstick, lip gloss, apricot scented shampoo, and jars of cotton balls and Q-Tips. What’s the deal with that?

I have learned through the years that my definition of five minutes and her definition of five minutes are different. That is a fact of life that I have come to understand and if there are any newlywed men out there, take it from me – they will be ready when they are ready, and not one minute sooner. You can get angry, upset, fume, or spontaneously combust in the living room and she will not be ready until she is ready. I suggest you do something constructive like rotating your tires or changing the oil in your car while you wait. You will arrive at your destination at exactly the same time, yet you will have a feeling of accomplishment.

In the early days, I used to huff and puff, get worked up into a lather whenever I thought she was taking too long to get ready. My blood pressure would peak at about 320/235 and if an unsuspecting misquote had the misfortune of biting me during these episodes, the pressure in my veins would have blasted him off me and splattered him on the wall like a bug on a windshield. I probably took ten years off my life and we still left when she was ready.

These days, I pick the battles I can win. I don’t question her obsession with shoes. If she wants to spend her entire check on shoes, that’s her business. I also learned another little helpful trick. I don’t start getting ready to go out until she says, “I’ll be ready in five minutes.” I can take a shower, brush my teeth, shave, shine my shoes and read the sports section of the paper before she emerges from her bathroom looking like a million bucks.

Some things are worth waiting for.