I've mentioned before that I enjoy hiking, so I know a thing or two about shoes. My Dad benefits from this knowledge, and, as a result, wears the best shoes my money can buy. I say my money, because my Dad can afford to pay for his shoes himself, but affording to and actually taking out your wallet and doing it are two separate things.
Many a time we've gone to Sam's, and I'll see three or four items in our cart that magically appear out of nowhere. It could be a pack of 50 little cheeses with a smiling cow on the label. I like cheese, but I don't want to eat fifty little packages of them. Neither does my Dad, although he doesn't realize it when he's putting it in the cart. He'll eat one, complain about how it stopped him up, and then the rest my wife will have to imaginatively include in the meals she prepares.
It could also be a box of 48 corn dogs. I used to enjoy eating corn dogs, that is, until I saw a picture of our almost-Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachman's husband eating one. I'm not particularly vain, but I don't want anybody to mistake me for a Hollywood Scientologist, either.
"Dad," I'll tell him when I see the box mysteriously appear in the cart. I don't know how he does it, but one moment something's not there, and then the next moment something is. He's pretty quick for an old guy. Anyway... "Dad, are you in the mood for a corn dog?"
"What?" he'll reply his usual reply.
"The corn dogs. Are you in the mood for one?"
"Am I in the mood for what?"
"A corn dog."
"A what?"
"A corn dog."
I think my Dad tries to wait me out. If he keeps asking me to repeat what I've just said, over and over again, then he probably figures I'll get tired and quit. But I'm shopping at Sam's with my wife. What else do I have to do?
"Why do you ask?" my Dad asks me supiciously.
"I can't help but notice you put a box of 48 corn dogs in the cart." I'll point at the box, and he'll look at it as if he's never seen it before in his life. "If you want a corn dog, why don't we go to the snack bar, and you and I can have one."
See? I'm not such a bad guy. I don't mind buying my father a corn dog. What I mind is buying 48 of them, him eating only one, and then us having to get rid of the remaining 47 in one way or another.
"Oh, I don't want one now," my Dad will reply. "I want one for later."
"Are you sure, Dad? We can go to the snack bar. A corn dog sounds pretty good."
"I'm sure."
"I'm kind of hungry."
"I said I'm sure."
When my Dad's sure, he's sure. Unless he isn't. But, even when he isn't, it'll still cost me money, because, out of stubborness, he'll pretend he is.
Which is a long way to go to explain that my Dad loves buying things. What he doesn't enjoy is paying for those things he loves to buy. So he'll just drop them in our cart, and somehow those things magically get paid for. No "Hey, can you buy me this." No "Thanks for buying me this." No "What are you going to do with the 47 corn dogs you'll have left over?"
So, when it comes to buying my Dad shoes, I don't skimp. I don't skimp with what goes on my feet, and I'd be a jerk if I skimped on what went on my dad's feet.
The only problem is my Dad's feet.
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
JimDuchene.blogspotcom American Chimpanzee
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