Women in my family will go to any lengths to buy shoes. We like
new shoes. We like expensive shoes. Oh, all right. Some of us
”that would be me” even like cheap shoes. But the bottom line is,
we must have shoes.
Women in my family will go to any lengths to buy shoes. We like new shoes. We like expensive shoes. Oh, all right. Some of us ”that would be me” even like cheap shoes. But the bottom line is, we must have shoes.
But when my youngest sister bought her first house, she needed a way to support her shoe habit and make her mortgage payment. So she got a roommate. A male roommate.
At first, this seemed like a great idea. Look, Tiffany grew up with two older sisters who bullied her into lending us her shoes all the time – sometimes before she had even worn them. So she didn’t want to live with someone who might borrow her shoes.
The problem was, she couldn’t run an ad in the paper that said, ”Woman wanted for house sharing. Must wear any size shoe but a 6.” So Tiffany got a male roommate.
I’m not sure this was Tiffany’s best plan. Sure, it solved the shoe dilemma. Even if the guy she picked did want to wear woman’s shoes, chances were he wasn’t going to fit into a size 6.
But Tiffany is pretty set in her ways. And by that I mean she’s a total clean freak who hates any speck of dirt in her house. And she doesn’t take well to others, well, not being clean freaks.
So maybe picking J wasn’t such a hot idea after all.
Oh, it started off okay. J gave in to Tiffany’s demands. He even signed a paper saying he would do half the chores. But Tiffany soon found out that J’s version of half the chores was mowing the lawn on alternate weekends.
And then there was the toilet issue. Please. Any woman who is married knows the toilet issue. In fact, leaving the seat up is probably the leading cause of divorce in this country. And like most women, Tiffany discovered the toilet issue abruptly.
About 3 a.m., a few days after J had moved in, Tiffany went to use the only bathroom in the house. And she fell in. And Tiffany got very, very wet. And that made her very, very mad.
And then a few days later, she started noticing little things about J that drove her up the wall. Like he could pass gas at will. And he could down a large beer and then burp the national anthem without taking a breath.
But the worst sin J has committed so far is being a slob.
Look, we’re talking about a woman whose dog smells better than my 8-year old son. She carries antiseptic wipes with her everywhere. And J just isn’t clean. The man has one towel, for Pete’s sake and he does laundry once a month. The ick factor is pretty high.
But yesterday, Tiffany phoned in a panic. It seems that last Friday night, J made a pot full of fettucine. And he took the pot into his room to eat it.
And the pot never came back out.
To say Tiffany was upset is mild. To say that Tiffany was obsessing about the pot is more accurate. And I didn’t want to tell Tiffany what I thought. Because I was pretty sure that a new life form was developing in J’s room.
But I kept my mouth shut. Who am I to shut off Tiffany’s sole source of shoe income?
Besides, after Tiffany gets done retraining J, he’ll make one heck of a husband. For a woman who enjoys unusual renditions of the national anthem and doesn’t wear a size 6, of course.
