I am blessed with a husband who firmly believes that for the good of our relationship he needs to periodically buy me new shoes. Apparently he once read that it’s a very good idea to buy your woman plenty of shoes and he sticks to that principle. I have never heard of any such rule, and I’m certain it’s not in the Bible, but I sure enjoy it when he randomly takes me shoe shopping, so I will encourage him to abide by this notion for the rest of his life. It helps that I am most fond of shoes of all styles and colors. If Angel had read a book which advised him to buy his wife plenty of purses, I wouldn’t feel nearly as spoiled. I have a red and black plaid purse that doesn’t match any of my outfits, and I wouldn’t want any other. If I did have another purse, I’d probably be too lazy to switch the contents of my purse from bag to bag, and one purse would inevitably sit on a shelf in my closet, becoming lonelier and dustier by the day.
In summary, it suits me just fine that my husband chooses to show his affection for me with shoes. However, it caused me great distress recently when I had occasion to believe that I had lost a pair of shoes that he had purchased for me. The day started out bright and sunny, and without any sense of foreboding I went with my cousins to a pool party. When we arrived at our host’s home, I changed into my swimsuit at the house and left my shoes and clothes outside the back door, near where everyone else had left their shoes. I spent the afternoon trying to convince my cousins that I didn’t want to get my hair wet. All of my entreaties were proved to be vain when my uncle tipped over my floating tube; fun was had by all. As the sun began to set, we headed back to the house, changed, and packed up our stuff in preparation to leave. I looked for my shoes where I had left them, but they weren’t there. I scoured the whole porch area where everyone had left their stuff—my shoes were nowhere to be found. I was getting a little more worried by this time, so I enlisted my cousins to help me look for my purple sandals. I ran back to the pool to search for them there, thinking that perhaps I had absent-mindedly wore them to the poolside. No, they weren’t there either.
As I searched I was getting more and more desperate. This pair of purple sandals was the most expensive pair of shoes that I’ve ever owned, and I was becoming attached to them. While I’ve always enjoyed colorful and stylish shoes, they’ve usually been of the Wal-mart or Payless variety. Angel, however, swore that this particular brand of sandals was excellent, and had bought me the purple sandals just a month before. I was quite certain that if I’d already lost my new, expensive sandals, he definitely wouldn’t want to buy me a new pair. An unreasonable suspicion began to form in my mind…perhaps the shoes had been stolen! But that was ridiculous. Still, I couldn’t help but think it. Some people may believe that shoes rarely get stolen, but where I come from, it’s not that uncommon. I once had a pair of tennis shoes stolen from my family’s front porch, and it occurred to me that the same thing had happened again.
I was really starting to despair of ever seeing my lovely sandals again when one of my cousins ran up to me, saying, “We found your shoes! We told the hostess that you couldn’t find them, and she knew where they were!”
It turns out, our hostess had the exact same pair of sandals, and when she saw what she thought were her sandals outside on the back porch, she had picked them up and put them in her closet! We would have been looking for a long time if no one had thought to mention our dilemma to the lady of the house. So, in a way, surprising as it seems, my suspicion that my shoes had been stolen was correct. I just didn’t know that they had been stolen with the best of intentions, and it turned out that the thief had an attack of conscience and repentantly returned my shoes. At least, you could look at it that way. This nearly-tragic adventure ended well, and I foresee that my purple sandals and I will have a long and happy relationship.
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