Shoes - The Great Debate - Men vs. Women
© Reginald Vickers
Have you ever heard the saying that "women like stability and men like variety"? I found this statement in one of my psychology books. They say that this is the reason that women are more apt to desire long-term relationships than men do. Yet I believe this hypothesis is false. I believe that women are more apt to fill their life with variety than men are. Case in point - shoes. Pick any house in the world. Upon entering, go to the woman's closet and count the number of shoes that she owns. Now count the number of shoes that the man has scattered throughout the house. The woman will have more shoes than the man does, every time. I believe that this difference crosses ethnic lines, nationalities, and cultures. A recent study shows that female Greenland Eskimos own 4 snowshoes to every one that the male owns. A study was also done in the Philippines in 1988 saying that the women of the Philippines owned 1,204 pairs of shoes to every pair owned by their male counterpart. Of course when they took away the number of shoes that Imelda Marcos owned, then it was more even, 2 to 1.
Momma has a closet just for shoes. I asked Pop if he knew how many shoes that Momma had and he replied without having to think- 2,609. It was evident that he must have been making this number up, so I asked him how he figured this so quickly. He said that every week since they'd been married, they take a trip to the mall. And each time they go Momma has to have a new pair of shoes. Pop continued to explain how she always gives the excuse, "I have this dress that I have never been able to find a pair of shoes to match. These match perfectly." Pop just smiles and nods in the affirmative. Momma hugs his neck like it's the first pair of shoes she ever bought. Pop then said, they have been married 50 years and two months and there are 52 weeks in a year. He said nonchalantly, "so that equals 2,608 pairs of shoes." Since I thought that I caught him making up numbers, I held my finger up as if to say, Aha! (And actually I may have even said that, Aha!) "You said that she had 2,609 pairs of shoes", I exclaimed. He countered without missing a beat, "She had to buy two pairs during the second week of September, 1975 when we went to Hawaii." I went upstairs to her shoe closet and looked in. Yep, there must be 2,609 pairs of shoes there. I called my wife in to get her acknowledgement of the number of shoes. She opened the shoe closet door. Her knees got weak and I had to grab her arm to keep her from falling (either that or she was going to bow down as if in honor of the great shoe god). I asked her if she was ok. She sat on the floor and finally caught her breath. All she could whisper was "shoes... shoes...2,609 pairs of shoes." I was in shock. How could she know the exact number of shoes? Hours later, after administering oxygen, I asked her how she knew this number off the top of her head. She said it was female instinct.
