What did you have planned for today?

This was said early Saturday morning after my hopes for being allowed to quietly sleep away the entire day were dashed by the intrusive noise of my progeny, each of whom decided to wake up extra early and begin their weekend chore of watching loud cartoon shows and recreating various movie scenes of violent fisticuffs and emotional melodrama.

“Welllll, MAYbe we coullllld…”

“The kids are awake and the door’s open.”

“I could close the door…”

“The kids are awake.”

“I could give them the keys to the van and let ‘em drive around for a while…”

“No.”

“You’re pretty!”

“No.”

Wow, the world’s most effective oral contraceptive.

Sensing that this avenue of Father’s Day gift getting was going nowhere, I did the next best thing—“What do YOU have planned for today?”

“I was thinking about going SHOPPING!”

As I mentioned Thursday, Father’s Day gifts at my house tend to be skewed greatly toward the GIVER’S tastes—witnessed by the fact that I really didn’t want to go shopping, yet that was exactly what I was going to be allowed to do. Yippee. In all truthfulness, I am one of the few guys I know who actually likes to go shopping—provided it is sans enfants. I could stand around with Reba looking at bras and panties and twee doodads all day long, but once the kids are invited along, all bets are off. Shopping becomes an exercise in Not Having A Bursted Aorta.

As I’ve mentioned, when you have more than two children, defense switches from man-to-man to zone, which is bad enough, but when your other teammate is heavily distracted by the search for the mythical pair of pants that’s cute and fits and doesn’t make her butt look big and is on sale, you wind up with something akin to it being 3rd and long, back on your own goal line, and the other team is blitzing AND your receivers are out of position. Your only options if you take the snap are to throw it away long downfield and figure it like a punt if they intercept, or do a short dump across the middle and get a yard or two of cushion so you have room to punt. In other words, sit in the car with the kids.

BUT, since this was ostensibly a search for Terrygifts, it might not be so bad. We decided to go ahead and do our usual Saturday evening routine that morning, just in case we got back late, so we shoved the kids into the wringer and switched it on HIGH for a while, then tumbled them dry on LOW until they were nice and shiny, then I got my shower, and we were ready to hit the door. As part of my special Dad Day activities, I had thought we could go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, and now that it was NOON I was certainly hungry enough.

I like Cracker Barrel, except for the part of it that’s within reach of curious children, and the part of it that makes the wait for a seat and food measurable with a calendar. But it was breakfast, you know, and they do breakfast more breakfasty than any other purveyor of food and frilly pseudo-antiques within at least a mile or two of our house.

Got there and got the old ticker working overtime trying to -- “NO, put it down,” -- keep all the -- “Put that up, too, and DON’T get another one back out,” -- kids under control and -- “We’re NOT getting another stuffed animal!” -- maintain some semblance of -- “Where’d Catherine go?! COME HERE!” -- order in my life. ::sigh:: Finally got our table and the food came out in a relatively short time—only about thirty or forty people who arrived after us got theirs before us. Settle up, then it was time to go on to the store.

The stated purpose of the trip to the store was to find Daddy a Pair of Shoes. Being that I am thoroughly a creature of sedate and unchanging tastes in clothing and shoes, I only wear one kind of dress shoe. Wingtips, lace up, black or cordovan. That’s it. This has been difficult of late because these are about as trendy as buggy whips and spats, and all non-benchmade shoes-that-are-relatively-nice-and-I-can-afford are ugly as Herman Munster shoes. Big, ugly things with thick toes and soles that look their best only when the wearer has the name "Lester" embroidered on his uniform pocket right underneath the little wrench logo. There are some wingtips out there, but they are either obscenely expensive or insanely cheap. Guess what I’m wearing right now.

Yep. Crazy cheap shoes.

Finally had to let go of my last pair of good black shoes after about the sixth resoling. Couldn’t find a nice pair of replacement wingtip Florsheims anywhere. All of them were either big, ugly, or both. Or, loafers. With kilts. And tassels. (As if… ) So, I was forced to do something I have always told Boy not to do, which is to buy cheapo shoes. The pair I have has a RUBBER sole PERMANENTLY ATTACHED to the upper, which is not made out of real, live dead cows, but some sort of manmade dead cows that just don’t quite seem real. BUT, Reba found a sale paper the other day that said our local McRae’s store had honest-to-goodness Florsheim wingtips. They aren’t truly expensive shoes since they are made with the benefit of foreign child labor (not really…I don’t think) but they do have the slightly upscale benefit of being lovingly made with real bovine tops, and the soles and heels can be replaced several times.

So, off to McRae’s.

Go to Men’s Shoes, which is packed with customers. Well, maybe half a dozen. But, it was decidedly LESS packed with helpful sales staff, so things took a while. Luckily, there were my shoes, though! Hooray!

“Do you have this in a 10E?”

“Hmm, nah. Just have the loafer, or the one with the smooth toe.”

Grr. Loafers! Cap Toes!! Arrgh. You people are making it very difficult to be an old fart.

“Do you have it in a 9 1/2?”

“Mmm-hm.”

She disappeared into “The Back” and after a suitable period of chatting or eating a snack or whatever, brought back out a box. Unstuffed the right shoe, slid it on, stepped down, experienced the joys of Chinese foot binding. “You don’t have ANYthing back there in a wingtip?”

“Nah.”

::sigh:: Well, maybe I could get a couple of dress shirts. I like dress shirts that are 100% cotton, because, believe it or not, they don’t shrink up in the collar and cuffs. The ones that are mixed cotton and poly wind up looking like doll clothes after just a few launderings. Everything they had was 60/40 cotton/poly. “Y’all don’t have ANY 100% cotton dress shirts?”

“Nah.”

“Well, let’s go look at dresses!” This was said with bright enthusiasm, which means that I am not the one who said it.

M’kay. Over to Women’s, and my offensive line gets buried under the blitz—“ALRIGHT—you, you, you and you—let’s go.”

Off to Cargatory.

“Can we…”

NO!

“Dad…”

NO!

“Does it…”

NO!

“BUT I HAVE TO GO TO THE WESTWOOOOOOooooom!”

::Ralph Kramden slow burn::

Repeat at stores across the metro area.

Return home, and my Father’s Day gifts consist of six dresses, several small cute bracelets and a pretty set of earrings that match the trim on one dress PERFECTLY, and then there are three pairs of shorts that will only fit me if I am a child size 8, and two shirts, a yellow little girl sundress, and a special pair of pants that came with a PAIR OF PLASTIC SANDALS!! Ooooooh! PRETTY!!

As I said Thursday, I have only two things that belong to me…

Luckily, I did get six cards (four from the kids and two from the wife) and a series of hugs and kisses, and in a further bright spot, the kids were able to get into bed without the bother of a full hair-washing and nail-clipping.

Sunday was not quite so hectic—except for the necessity of having to iron one pretty little girl dress and one new wife dress in order for us not to a) go to church looking as though the clothes had been carelessly laid upon various horizontal pieces of furniture, and b) be late for church. Wouldn’t have been so bad except for having to do both dresses twice. And we had to leave RIGHT THEN.

Did my stand-in duty with the 5th and 6th graders, worshipped, fought sleep, went and had lunch with Ashley’s grandparents, went and visited with Reba’s mom and dad, went to the house to get something, went back to church to have a meeting about Vacation Bible School (I get to be Saul one night!), evening sermon, supper, home, finally get to stretch out and read the newspaper, sleep about five hours, then come here!

For some reason, I feel a bit tired.
posted by Terry at 3:57:00 PM