VR is looking for shoes. Her choice is limited: her feet are 3½ and you could roll a golf ball under either of her high arches. "I'm looking for something pretty," she explains. "Would you like to help?"
In fifty-three years of marriage this is a first. I take my duties seriously. I dismiss one pair for being hugger-mugger, another for looking like sandals, yet another for lack of integrated design. "These are the ones," I say, pointing.
VR says nothing, gathers up three other styles and we go to the sitting-down place. I feel a sulk coming on.
The three others are tried, discussion ensues and I am invited to rate them. I do so, grumpily. Finally my choice is tried. "They're the best," I say, and VR nods to the sales assistant. Full whack price, too.
The moral? In a marriage as long as ours, one may accept the other's advice. But only after demonstrating one hasn't been steam-rollered. I was quietly pleased but said nothing. An English couple, behaving typically
TA FOR THAT In Hereford, everyone leaving the bus thanks the driver. It doesn't weary me and I've joined in. My bonhomie doesn't, however, extend to ATMs.
UNCHRISTMAS I've cut my Christmas card list savagely; a book of a dozen postage stamps covers it easily. It's May and I'm still sending letters decorated with images of Santa Claus. Will people guess why?
PS: VR's feet are 3, not 3½.
You include "philosophy" with your labels and I reckon that is well justified - I would go another step and call it "practical philosophy".
ReplyDeleteCongratulations. In 24 years of marriage I never got anywhere near that kind of success in similar situations.
Invariably I salute fellow drivers who have stopped to let me pass when the obstacle is on their side. If I'm with my pal Pete and I forget I am admonished in fatherly style (Pete is a few years older than me).
Robbie: Pity you're an atheist; you could have been a saint!
ReplyDeleteTom - he could be the patron saint of atheists?
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: As the pope has recently given sainthoods to 800 people who were massacred "way back when", knowing the name of only one of them, perhaps we could inform the pope that one of them was Sir Roderick of Robinson. Whose to know? We wouldn't tell.
ReplyDeleteWell it sounds to me like VR saved the best for last. She wanted you to know she took your advice seriously. (This interpretation of the moral from an unmarried wench.)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful shoes! Lovely choice. I should take you along on my next shoe-buying excursion.
ReplyDeleteThere used to be an advertisment showing people newly shod and proud of their acquisition. "New shoes!" was the slogan. Such a lovley feeling of luxury.
ReplyDeleteThanking the bus driver must be universal because we do it here too on the Kent Sussex border. Must be something new because in the old days the driver was isolated in his cab, and a conductor took money for the tickets, and shouted out the names of stops. I don't remember anyone thanking him.
Sir Hugh: I wasn't really looking for success as such; had this been the case precedent tells me there would have never been any subsequent agreement. I had a view (which had been solicited) and I was hoping to get it across as clearly as I could. Even so the danger can lie in simply having a view.
ReplyDeleteTom: This is surely a coded message. Sainthood is usually achieved by paying a heavy price: eg, being flayed and/or roasted on a griddle. Faced with that, paganism could have had me.
Sir Hugh: Atheism does not(or should not) proselytise.
Tom: I have one outstanding virtue: I haven't knowingly abused any children. Provided allowances are made for my unceasing campaign to rid my daughters of their tendency to depend on "really" as a qualifier.
RW (zS): That's a fair enough interpretation. Mes félicitations.
The Crow: Thank you. They deserve double-clicking because of the detail.
Joe: I'm not sure VR is going to wear these shoes. They are a bit too pretty, I think.
I wouldn't say thank you to a London bus driver. The gesture would almost certainly be taken to be sarcastic.
I guess VR's feet don't swell, ever.
ReplyDeleteMy shoes must be low cut in the front,something like cut between first and second design from front.
These shoes are very elegant looking.
Her first dance should be yours.