On Sunday afternoon I voluntarily drove around our over-populated suburb and went shoe shopping with my husband. How much time did this take, you ask? Let's just say that it was more than one hour, but less than six. Now before you start thinking "Ah ha! The Mean Mom said that she would never rip on her husband, but I knew she'd cave at some point! I can't wait to read about how horrendous it was!" I have to admit that it was actually pretty tolerable and even enjoyable. After all, I wasn't under any pressure to find shoes for myself or the kids, the boys were left at home and I took advantage of the opportunity to point out several items that I really liked because you never know when Doug will be overwhelmed with the urge to shower me with gifts.
Due to the fact that the majority of men's shoes consist of little more than hideous hunks of leather and fabric sewn together into something that resembles the shape of a foot, we had to go to a few different stores to find something that he liked. How many stores exactly, you ask? Let's just say that it was more than one, but fewer than six. We did manage to find a pair at store #2 that didn't make me wince with disgust, but unfortunately they didn't have the right size. Since I like to be efficient and don't really derive joy from making wasted trips, I figured I'd call store #3 to see if they had the correct size before we drove there.
Now is when the bitching starts, but it still isn't about Doug.
I had a coupon for store #3 but of course the coupon was at home. Since I knew exactly where the coupon was I called Zach so that he could look at it and give me the phone number. As soon as he answered his phone, though, I knew that I had interrupted a critical video game marathon and that there was no way in hell this conversation was going to result in me having a phone number.
I told him to look in the cabinet in the kitchen where I keep the calendar. "What cabinet? Where?" That long door, in the kitchen, by the fridge, where the calendar has been hanging for the last ten years. "Oh why didn't you say so in the first place." Open the door and look on the top shelf. "What? The bottom shelf? All I see are bags." No, the top shelf. There's a coupon for a shoe store. Do you see it? "Start over. I see no coupon on the bottom shelf. Oh wait. Here it is on the top shelf, not the bottom shelf. What do you want?" Please tell me the phone number. "I don't see a phone number. I just see a coupon." Please open your eyes, turn on your brain and decipher numbers. And stop making me want to hurt you.
Doug was listening to my end of this riveting conversation and could see the beads of sweat forming on my hairline. Since we still hadn't found a pair of shoes for him and he didn't want me to lose my mind and start screaming in public, he pulled out his iPhone and said "Here, I'll just look it up."
Within ten seconds Doug had found the phone number and I had pretty much hung up on my limited-use-of-the-English-language kid. After another 20 seconds I found out that store #3 not only didn't have the correct size, but didn't even carry the same style. And then I started to wonder if they sell shoes at the bar.
I probably would have had better results if I had told Zach to Google the name of the shoe store instead of having to physically move around the house trying to find a specific piece of paper because as I've discovered, technology is more helpful and reliable than a teenage boy. I will definitely remind him that although I know I'm not as interesting or smart as a PlayStation 3, he still needs to pay attention when I'm talking to him. And maybe he needs a smack in the head. After all, I think there's an app for that.
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