Tuesday, November 28 – Sock Hock
On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 I started my short-lived career as a shoplifter.
It wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t much, and it wasn’t detected. But here is what I did. I walked out of SportChek with a borrowed sock on my foot. GASP!
How did my brief fall from grace happen? Had I been intercepted, my only defense would have been, “Officer, it was due to extreme enthusiasm.” If you know Laurence and me, you’ll know that we are not in the habit of spending money on new “stuff” – save when we’re at our trailer in our Seniors’ Park in Arizona. And even then, it’s for food, which you can hardly buy second hand!
I would love to tell you that our lack of interest in shiny new things is because we are environmentalists or minimalists, but it’s not. We are skinflints (Laur’s one-quarter Scots) and shopping-phobes. We would both rather have dentistry without freezing than go searching around in a shopping mall
This is a phobia born of some experience. OK, one experience. Some five or more years ago we decided that we could buy a new living room set and a new dining room set. Up until that point we’d always had used. But when the dining table started listing and the love seat got rather hateful, Laur said, “I’ve got a full time job, you know. We can afford to buy new.”
We skulked around furniture stores for two days, wanting to stab ourselves and each other. Finally we settled on some “stuff,” just to make the pain go away. Within a day or two, one of our kids had made a “design” on the new table with an exacto knife or a compass. Our border collie, Pudge, threw up multiple times on the new couch; Mercy, our old retriever, developed massive incontinence on the love seat; and the cats quickly decimated the chair. We kept the dining room set, but the living room set ended up at the side of the road, and from there into the landfill site. We still don’t have any living room furniture.
*****
But back to the sock stolen from a shopping mall. The one part of our lives where Laurence and I are happy enough to spend money is on footwear. I’m a walkoholic, and I need shoes that take a good pounding. Laur gets arthritis in his knee if he wears el cheapo runners. But it wasn’t shoes that led me on my (small) crime spree. It was winter boots.
It was time for both of us to invest in our next three years of winter wear (though truthfully, we hope to spend winter 2015/16 in Arizona.) Laur had worn out the treads of his boots and was resorting to cleats to stay upright. I had worn the synthetic fur out of my boots and was developing blisters. We girded our loins and pointed our (used) car toward the closest mall.
The footwear shop was crazy busy – which tends to happen on the first really wintery day. Still, Laur was able to find a boot with good treads. And me, I slipped my foot into a brand new Merrell Kiandra. AH! It was better than chocolate. I was a little concerned that the boot was too small – it was so delightfully snuggly. The salesman brought me a second sock to add on, just to be sure there was enough room. I was in a winter wonderland, so much so that I walked out wearing that extra sock. (I did remember to pay for the boots, though.)
It wasn’t until we were heading out for our after supper walk, and I was putting on my new boots, that I realized I was wearing three socks. GAH! How embarrassing. What was more embarrassing was how to return it! It’s not like I could slip it inside their mail slot. So I washed it, stood in the checkout line, apologized, and returned it.
The cashier thought it was pretty funny. So did the people at the bank – the stop before – when I pulled the sock out of my purse, searching for my wallet. (I felt I should explain that I really didn’t keep my money in a sock, though they wouldn’t have been all that surprised.)
It wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t much, and it wasn’t detected. But here is what I did. I walked out of SportChek with a borrowed sock on my foot. GASP!
How did my brief fall from grace happen? Had I been intercepted, my only defense would have been, “Officer, it was due to extreme enthusiasm.” If you know Laurence and me, you’ll know that we are not in the habit of spending money on new “stuff” – save when we’re at our trailer in our Seniors’ Park in Arizona. And even then, it’s for food, which you can hardly buy second hand!
I would love to tell you that our lack of interest in shiny new things is because we are environmentalists or minimalists, but it’s not. We are skinflints (Laur’s one-quarter Scots) and shopping-phobes. We would both rather have dentistry without freezing than go searching around in a shopping mall
This is a phobia born of some experience. OK, one experience. Some five or more years ago we decided that we could buy a new living room set and a new dining room set. Up until that point we’d always had used. But when the dining table started listing and the love seat got rather hateful, Laur said, “I’ve got a full time job, you know. We can afford to buy new.”
We skulked around furniture stores for two days, wanting to stab ourselves and each other. Finally we settled on some “stuff,” just to make the pain go away. Within a day or two, one of our kids had made a “design” on the new table with an exacto knife or a compass. Our border collie, Pudge, threw up multiple times on the new couch; Mercy, our old retriever, developed massive incontinence on the love seat; and the cats quickly decimated the chair. We kept the dining room set, but the living room set ended up at the side of the road, and from there into the landfill site. We still don’t have any living room furniture.
*****
But back to the sock stolen from a shopping mall. The one part of our lives where Laurence and I are happy enough to spend money is on footwear. I’m a walkoholic, and I need shoes that take a good pounding. Laur gets arthritis in his knee if he wears el cheapo runners. But it wasn’t shoes that led me on my (small) crime spree. It was winter boots.
It was time for both of us to invest in our next three years of winter wear (though truthfully, we hope to spend winter 2015/16 in Arizona.) Laur had worn out the treads of his boots and was resorting to cleats to stay upright. I had worn the synthetic fur out of my boots and was developing blisters. We girded our loins and pointed our (used) car toward the closest mall.
The footwear shop was crazy busy – which tends to happen on the first really wintery day. Still, Laur was able to find a boot with good treads. And me, I slipped my foot into a brand new Merrell Kiandra. AH! It was better than chocolate. I was a little concerned that the boot was too small – it was so delightfully snuggly. The salesman brought me a second sock to add on, just to be sure there was enough room. I was in a winter wonderland, so much so that I walked out wearing that extra sock. (I did remember to pay for the boots, though.)
It wasn’t until we were heading out for our after supper walk, and I was putting on my new boots, that I realized I was wearing three socks. GAH! How embarrassing. What was more embarrassing was how to return it! It’s not like I could slip it inside their mail slot. So I washed it, stood in the checkout line, apologized, and returned it.
The cashier thought it was pretty funny. So did the people at the bank – the stop before – when I pulled the sock out of my purse, searching for my wallet. (I felt I should explain that I really didn’t keep my money in a sock, though they wouldn’t have been all that surprised.)