Mornings are always fun. Usually my wife goes to work early and I get up to help her, just to make it a little less of a rush. Today she had to be out the door at 7:00 AM sharp to catch a ride with a co-worker.
So I made her breakfast and coffee and kept an eye on Michael downstairs while she finished getting ready.
I even took the time to straighten the entryway a smidge and got a few of my wife’s most oft-chosen shoes lined up, thinking she’d probably want one of the pairs there.
It’s important to understand that Michael’s mommy loves her shoes. I am not going to compare her to Imelda Marcos, but she has a lot of them. Being a male, I cannot understand the need for more than three pairs: grungy shoes, every day shoes, and Sunday shoes; so it’s hard for me to grasp the need to own so many different shoes, nor do I see how anyone can determine which shoes are the right ones for the given occasion/circumstance/venue/mood.
In addition, these shoes are prone to wandering off on their own and hiding. You can find them in the darndest places. Fortunately, I’ve gotten pretty good and shoe search and rescue, so my wife often calls upon me to locate a requested pair of shoes, which when you think about it is quite a feat. Let me remind you again that I am a man. Men are not widely respected for their ability to distinguish between colors or styles of apparel.
Which brings me back to my tale.
At 6:55 she called, frantic, from the top of the stairs:
“Tom! I need you to find my shoes!”
I sprang into action.
“Which shoes?” I called as I dashed over to the stairs.
“The dark cloggy ones that I haven’t seen for weeks and weeks!”
That narrows it down, I thought. “Dark cloggy ones?”
“Yes! They’re reddish brown and I have no idea where they are!”
“And you expect me to find them in five minutes?”
Intuitively, I first checked the entryway closet. This is where most shoes end up when they’ve gone missing for any length of time.
I dug furiously through a condensed layers of apparel strata like a possessed armadillo, tossing everything into the entryway: boots, umbrellas, a leg brace, an errant coat, and at least thirty pairs of shoes, most of them belonging to any of three teenage girls who, when asked to clean up, just toss their belongings inside this closet and quickly shut the door.
With one minute to spare, from the back of the closet I plucked out one pair of reddish-brown cloggy type shoes that haven’t seen the light of day for at least three weeks.
“There you are.”
“Thank you!”
“I think I’ve earned something for that,” I say.
“Congratulations.” she says. “You passed that challenge.”
Once again, I have preserved my spot on the island.
I’ve seriously considered a color coded inventorying method for my wife’s shoes. As far as I go, I’m with you. I have shoes for church, mowing the lawn and everything else. That’s it.
(MD) If they made an RFID system with enough channels to cover all of her shoes, I’d have them all chipped.
Love this blog, I can totally see it in progress. You are a man for all seasons of shoes and I am proud of you, You did not learn that from me. I have no memory of my shoe moments when you lived at home.
Did your wife tell you that she will not reveal your wonderfulness to her fellow nurses?
They have husbands that sound like total slackers. You are a total asset for sure.
Your mom would like a call soon but that is another story, Love, me
(MD) Silly mother. You know I’m a neglectful son and I never call. And years ago, I think I only had one pair of shoes to keep track of.
Now that is one loving, caring and sweet husband. I hope you wound up with an award of fresh fruit or some real food, or something else too.
(MD) Yup. That real food was Thai take-out. Still working on getting some fresh fruit out of the deal.
Tom, you are such a survivor! Good job!
(MD) And I didn’t have to crawl through a snake pit or eat raw fish, either!
Wow! I’m very impressed! It is a loving husband that would search for shoes that no one has seen in a few weeks. The fact that you actually found them on time just astounds me!
“…which, when you think about it, is quite a feat.” Nice play on words.
(MD) I do like my puns. Kudos to you for catching it!
I’m perhaps one of the few women in the world who hates shoes. Perhaps it’s because I rock a pair of size 11 feet and most shoes make my feet look like the Love Boat. Anyway, I have spinning shoes, walking/running shoes, 2 pairs of flip flops, and 2 pairs of classic heels for work or dress-up; that’s it.
And they still get lost, unfortunately. But that’s another story.
(MD) I guess they’re like chocolate. You either love it, or you don’t. There’s no middle ground. I don’t care for shoes, but chocolate is another story. A delicious, fattening story.
A well-deserved spot on the island you have!
OK so I hope last weekends “Early Happy Fathers Day” made up for my impishness!! You are the best husband EVER!!! XOXO
(MD) You know I love the impishness. It’s part of what makes you adorable. XOXO back atcha!
You are super human. There is not other way to describe a man that knows what dark cloggy shoes are and can find them in a closet full of shoes.
(MD) You know, I think as husbands we adapt to the particular needs of our wives. She needs someone who can make coffee, fix things and find shoes. I could make coffee and fix things before, but I’ve learned over the years to keep track of her shoes. It’s a survival technique, I think.