Shoe shopping

Mom and I were shopping at a desert outlet mall and wandered into one of the more expensive shoe stores. The place was empty, except for a salesman who coalesced out of the darkness. He didn't acknowledge us, and we didn't acknowledge him, but he seemed caught in our orbit as we moved from shoe to shoe down the right wall. We took a step; he took a step. We hurried our pace, and silently he hurried his pace. By the time we rounded the back corners, Mom and I were almost running. But he was right behind us, reaching out and tapping the odd display shoe as if it were some effeminate sport.

It was such a relief to get back out into the sunshine.

"Shall we go home now?" Mom asked. I nodded. It was the first we had spoken since entering the store.

"I didn't really like that store, did you?"

She shook her head. "Not at all."

Monty Python's Personal Best

I just got home and found my dad taped Monty Python's Personal Best for me. I came in as the vikings were singing, "Spam, spam, spam!"

What better father can one have?

Glasses

This morning, I got up, put on my glasses and went into the living room. E. was in some weird pose, like a cat being petted, and I said, “Oh, you’re doing yoga?” (She’s a regular yoga doer.)

"No, I'm looking for something." Then I realized she was peering under the sofa. “Have you seen my glasses?”

"No."

She was looking at me now, and I suddenly felt guilty but didn’t know why.

“I swear I’d tell you if I saw them. You don’t believe me?”

She kept looking at me. Then she stood up and came closer. “Can I see your glasses?”

I whipped them off. They were her glasses. But, we have about the same prescription, and they are similar looking...except hers are green and not rectangular, like mine. I apologized and rushed to find my own glasses and came back wearing them:

"See, don’t they look identical?"

But the more I compared them, the more different they looked.