Sunday, the last day of the Thanksgiving shopping campaign. Having walked first around San Francisco’s Chinatown and then the circumference of Union Square, I was seat-hopping at Macy’s. My wife and daughters would move from one roomful of shoes, boots, sandals and slippers to the next. I trailed dutifully behind, scouting each new array of footwear for strategic, horizontal surfaces upon which I could rest the weary bones of a disinterested father and husband.
Single shoes and boxes were strewn about, ignored by the salesmen frantically trying to keep pace with the requests of an army of determined women. I wondered why they were all men. Did women prefer the male attention? Did they wish to gage their newly donned appearances in the eyes of a beholding man? Were women too impatient to put up with the endless, indecisive requests of other women? Clueless, I sat.
Watching the show, I began to focus on the slightly disheveled waiters in this leather feast. They raced and darted, but did not seem put out. I’m sure I would have pulled out what hair I had remaining and screamed my way out the front door after a couple of hours. Yet these seasoned professionals attended to their charges un-miffed, emerging from each foray backstage to present not one but a stack of proffered boxes. Surely they were retail sages possessing knowledge of women I could only read about in psychological journals. Curiosity having gotten the better part of my weariness, I approached one.
Describing my own anticipated state of frustration were I — so to speak — in his shoes, I asked the fellow how he managed to stay sane. “Oh, well, it’s not so bad,” he said with gracious humility.
“How about the men? I can’t imagine them – us — processing through dozens of shoes and sending them all back!”
He laughed and confided that “some of the salesmen in Men’s Shoes have a hard time over here. It’s very different. Men look at some shoes and decide. Women take longer; much longer.”
“But do they eventually buy something, or do they just look and keep you hopping?”
“No, no, they usually do find something they like. But it takes a long time. Shoes are very important for women. It’s like cars for guys.”
Therein lay the wisdom of the sage. In one simple metaphor, he had explained the hubbub that had perplexed me for years. As I was swept along to the next display room by the whoosh of my passing daughters — what was dad talking about now? — I exchanged smiles and waved a heartfelt goodbye. I had found a compatriot in the lifelong game of cross-gender understanding.