Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan has announced this summer it will add an entire floor of just shoes. If you’re counting, that’s going to be about 10,000 shoes. The U.S. Post Office has actually granted this footwear wonderland its own ZIP code! Just think men, we can drop our wives off and quite possibly never see them again. They will have to airlift in water and food (mostly salads) to keep them alive. There might have to be a special missing persons list for lost wives at Saks. Pretty soon my wife will adorn milk cartons with the notation, "She was last seen wandering the marked-down section."
When we went to New York recently, I did what every good husband does: I told my wife the weekend was hers to do whatever she wished. Using a method discussed in "The Secret" and best known to followers of Oprah, I then mentally concentrated on the word "sex." Something must have gone wrong in the transmission because, at that very moment, she said "shopping." My wife assured me she would limit her shopping, which is like me telling her I can take or leave the joys of physical love. Shopping actually takes the place of the sex drive in most women, and they don’t have to take a pill to do it after they pass 50.
It was in the 80s in Manhattan when we started out on our shopping trip (actually it was her shopping trip; I was more interested in survival). To be fair, my wife did say I didn’t have to go. I could relax in our air-conditioned suite and watch the Yanks and Red Sox on TV. After 43 years of marriage, I knew that meant, "You don’t come with me, there’s no nookie at the end of this rainbow."
We marched 20 blocks to Macy’s in the blazing sun. I began whistling the theme from "The Bridge on the River Kwai." I was not Alec Guinness. I was not going to make it. But finally we got there and she deposited me on a sofa outside the ladies dressing room. I dropped off into a peaceful sleep where there were no racks of women’s clothing, only the green grass of baseball fields (with a few massage parlors thrown in).
An hour later she woke me up just before I had violated New York’s vagrancy law. She was empty-handed. I could have recited the words in unison with her (in two-part harmony) — "Would you believe it? Nothing fit." It was then she broke the news to me there were no other stores in the area in which she was interested — not in all of Herald’s Square. Coincidentally, there were some stores where she wanted to shop 20 blocks in the other direction. If I had been a prisoner of war and Bush were not president, I could have screamed she was violating my rights under the Geneva Convention. I didn’t have that option (although I guess I could have opted for waterboarding), so we marched 20 blocks the other way.
I am more than half way to my 69th birthday. I mention this because perhaps someone from AARP will read this column and sue my wife for cruelty to a senior citizen. That evening, I complained my feet hurt (this after she wanted to stroll a few blocks to walk off our dinner). She told me I need a good podiatrist. I told her what I really need is an older wife.
The pain men experience while shopping is universal. While we were walking through the shoe salon at Bergdorf Goodman, I looked at the men, young and old, slouched glassy-eyed on the couches while their women shopped. Note: we actually saw a pair of shoes with a price tag of $4,650. The shoes weighed at least 5 pounds each with ugly platform heels and a plastic top designed to bring as much pain to the instep as possible. Somewhere there is a woman in New York who bought these shoes who is not Cher. It boggles the mind.
I felt particular pity for the younger men sitting in that department, staring into space. They had many years ahead of them, and many white lies to tell. For instance, one particularly hot female went over to her boyfriend. She was wearing one gold and one silver shoe (both were hideous replicas of something no self-respecting Mummer would wear on New Year’s Day). She asked her boyfriend that age-old question, "Which shoe looks better?" Now I could tell, with the body this girl had, it was probably the first time her boyfriend noticed she even had feet, let alone wore shoes. But the male instinct took over, the one that says, "Will there be nookie for me at the end of this rainbow?" He nodded solemnly and made a meaningless choice. He had passed an early test. There would be others.
I guess it means I better see a good podiatrist.
