Since rollerblading regularly again, I need to replace the wheels every six months, so I’m always on the lookout for second-hand pairs. Consequently, on our way to a restaurant yesterday, I notice a Cash Converters and quickly drag Heidi in.
Like the “hunter” in Tim Plewman’s longstanding solo comedy show, “Defending the Caveman”, I intend to be in and out to spear or fail to spear my prey in five seconds flat. No roller blades and I’m already on my way out when I see my beloved is no longer at my side.
Like the classic “gatherer” in the same comedy show my wife is browsing among the appliances. “Ooh… this fat-bottomed gas kettle is so cute. We can use it for camping, let’s get it.”
Now I’m as much a fan of cute, fat bottoms as the next guy, but on kettles they leave me cold: “At that price it’s not worth it…we can always find one…it’s not on this month’s budget.” Turning on my heel to head for the door I see she is now checking the wetsuits.
This is different, so I tarry. She’s been looking for a short-pants wet suit for months, so she can boogie board without getting a rash on her thighs. A quick try-on over her clothes and it fits. She’s delighted. I go skin the catch. The teller gives me the price. Basically, the same price as the kettle… I would have been happy to pay twice that. We triumphantly emerge brandishing our trophy on the end of my metaphorical spear.
This elated shopping experience stands in sharp contrast to numerous times when I’ve spent a whole afternoon looking for something in numerous shops in busy traffic in the hot sun, parking and re-parking, only to return home empty handed. I can empathize with Peter’s deflated mood when he told Jesus he’d worked all night and hadn’t caught anything. It’s enough to drive one to drink.
An in-between experience happened a year or so ago when we first arrived in Fish Hoek.
We went into Kalk Bay’s Wetsuit Warehouse and Heidi tried on a wetsuit on special. The assistant was overly optimistic, and he gave her one that was a size or two too small.
Loitering outside the change rooms, waiting for her, trying to look like a doting husband and not a pervert, I heard her call for me.
She was stuck, and like the Grand Old Duke of York’s ten thousand men, who were neither up nor down the hill, she was neither in nor out of the wetsuit.
We huffed and puffed, she squealed and began to perspire, and I could sense we were starting to draw a crowd.
So, I did the only sensible thing. I pretended I didn’t know her, walked to the other corner of the warehouse and studiously examined the surf boards.
Didn’t this go against my marriage vows, “for better for worse, till death do we part”? Not at all. I was mortified (from the latin mors/mort: death) and I departed.
