I Have an App a Pair of Shoes for That!
It’s true. I am my grandmother’s child. My mom often wonders (notice how I simply said “wonders,” not “laments”) how THE GENE skipped her so completely and went straight from my grandma to me. Frankly, I wonder the same thing because it’s an incredibly strong gene. The gene about which I’m writing is the “I love shoes!” gene that apparently skips generations in my mom’s side of the family. We won’t go into detail on the number of shoes that I own as my husband nearly had a heart attack last night after our final count, but suffice it to say that I’m nearly set for my centipede trasformation operation. (Why have the shoes if you can’t wear them all at once?)
Normally I don’t count my shoes. Ignorance is bliss, right? Yesterday, however, we went to the mall for the first time in several months because Scotty needed new jeans. He goes through them more quickly than the average adult male office-worker type because his company’s dress code, well… it doesn’t really exist, to be honest, so he wears jeans pretty much every day. Anyway, after successfully finding a couple pairs of jeans, I absolutely couldn’t pass up a chance to visit Nordstrom’s shoe department. Halfway there, Scotty ditched me for the Apple store (probably better for both of us) so I ventured in alone. There was a bright light. Angels sang. I was in my own little slice of Heaven. I nearly wept with joy, right there in front of a very perplexed salesman. I know you’re asking yourself, “Did she make it out without a pair of shoes?” Clearly you do not know me. I found myself a nice, sparkly pair of TOMS. I’d been wanting a pair for quite some time but had, until yesterday, never been able to find what I wanted both in my size and actually available in-store. Rather than turn to online shopping, I simply continued to check every time I went into a store that sells TOMS. Once I had them in my possession, it was time to confess my purchase to Scotty. (My purse wasn’t big enough to hide the shoes, and I thought it would look a bit suspicious if I stuffed the shoe box down the front – or back – of my shirt.) As soon as Scott saw the bag in my hand, I got the classic raised-eyebrow. I opened the bag, and he laughed; I believe he said something to the effect of, “More shoes? Really? And glitter, too?” but he liked them. All was well with the world, and we left the mall.
Now on to why I counted my shoes last night… I had been unpacking our shopping bags when Scott walked into the closet. He saw me staring at my wall of shoe boxes, holding my new shoe box and clearly wondering where I was going to put it. He laughed at me. He seriously laughed at me. This was a BIG problem – not something to be taken lightly, and there the man was, laughing at my dilemma. I thought about a few inventive places I could store my shoes but decided to let that slide on account of he’d been totally okay with the shoe purchase earlier in the day. Then he asked me, point-blank, “How many pairs of shoes do you have, anyway?” Of course I had to count them. He refused to accept my shrug as a valid response. When I revealed the number, Scott nearly died. Seriously. I’m pretty sure he saw the light there for a minute, maybe even heard the angels sing. It was like being back in Nordstrom’s. He gasped. He choked. Then he laughed and issued a new house rule: For every pair of shoes I buy, I have to get rid of a pair I already have. NOT FAIR!!
I got him back good, though. I smiled and responded to his declaration with, “Oh, well, hon… there are several pairs in there I’m willing to part with. Does that mean I can go shoe-shopping this week?” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I nearly killed my husband twice in the course of about five minutes.