Earrings and Hand Bags

I did not go into the office on Friday. I woke up around 4:45 am and spent a couple of hours reading and responding to office email and reviewing a contract for a client and then I was finished for the day. After 32 years of practicing law, I give myself a little breather on Friday’s. During the winter I am generally in Palm Desert, CA on Friday. From June through November 20th or so, I am in Utah but I generally don’t work more than a half a day on Friday.

My plan for this past Friday was to run a number of errands and then play in a golf game at 3:30. I planned on going to the bank, mailing some letters, going to Home Depot, going the Macy’s to buy some pants and going to the sporting goods store; Man Stuff.

Around 10:00 am I told the Lovely Sharon that I was heading out for my errands and that I would be back in time for golf. I told her that I thought I would do some ‘man’ stuff and give her some personal time for whatever she wanted to do. As I was just about to leave, the Lovely Sharon told me she would tag along with me. I responded by suggesting she might enjoy doing her own thing as my “man” stuff would not be all that fun for her. She wasn’t dissuaded and said she would just go with me.

We did go to Macy’s but I didn’t find what I was looking for. So I ended up waiting for the Lovely Sharon to look through about 800 pairs of earrings on the spindle display racks. She removed each pair from the rack, looked at them and then replaced them back on the rack. Even though she is quite adept at this process, It still takes quite awhile to go through 800 pairs. Then we walked down the mall to Dillard’s where we looked at another couple of hundred pairs of earrings and then we looked at purses. When I say we looked at purses, I mean we looked at every purse, handbag, tote etc. offered for sale by Dillard’s. They were big, little, leather, cloth, plastic. Some were on sale others were not. Every purse with a shoulder strap was tried on by the Lovely Sharon. That amounted to about 75 of them. After each one was slipped over her shoulder, she asked me how it looked. "Fine" I replied to each querry. I tried not to be obvious when I continued to look at my watch. For me looking at 75 purses with shoulder straps was like looking at cows at the State Fair; the first couple of cows are interesting but the next 50 cows seem to be redundant. At that point all you hear are moos and all you see are udders.

Once we had made the loop and looked at every bag in the store, I perked up a little and had high hopes that we would now be heading over to the sporting goods store. I wistfully looked in the direction of the door and started leaning in that direction. I was almost like a sprinter getting ready to come out of starting blocks. To my absolute horror, she started the loop again. She walked again through the very displays she had already dissected, like a biology teacher working on a frog. When I realized she was going for a second view, I leaned my head against a glass display case and moaned. It was painful, I mean really painful to see her start her loop walk again. She asked me if I was ok, and with all my strength, I was able to whisper that I was feeling a little dizzy but it would pass. I smiled and told her to take her time.

When she was finally done with the purse review (for the second time) we started to walk out of Dillard’s. I stayed close to her side as we walked through yet more earring cases, then through lingerie and finally through cosmetic’s. As we walked, I tried to use mental telepathy on her (“Don’t stop, keep walking, go directly to the car”). It worked; we finally made it back to car. When we arrived home, the Lovely Sharon said that she had enjoyed our outing. I said me too (and to be truthful, spending time with the Lovely Sharon is always worth it).

Oh by the way, I did make it to the Post Office.