Croc-ey, mate!

Yeah, so I tagged along with my wife as she went clothes shopping the other day. Generally she will do nearly anything to avoid my company on such excursions, since like most men I utterly fail to grasp why it can take a woman nearly an hour to decide between two virtually identical shirts whose only alleged difference is a color variation so imperceptible to the naked eye it would likely require something as sophisticated as a NASA computer to tell them apart. If she feels rushed by me during her selection process she will invariably pick the wrong shirt, which won’t be discovered until she is wearing in front of her mirror at home with that “I should have gotten the other one” look on her face.

After many years of careful observation I have finally come to the conclusion that shifting back and forth on my feet like a spoiled five-year-old boy and whining, “I gotta go pee!” only annoys her, and thus I have tried to find better ways to amuse myself during her grueling selection process. With precious few possibilities available to me in a woman’s clothing store, this usually boils down to me grabbing some particularly gaudy and ridiculous item of apparel off the rack to try on right there in order to strike a silly pose for her and ask, “Does this make me look fat?” With an appropriately goofy hat or sweater this can often provoke a small chuckle from her. That makes it all worthwhile and I’m good for at least another several minutes as I revel in my own comedy. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that this stunt has also resulted in my being banned for life from every store in the entire Victoria’s Secret chain. It would appear that people who work in women’s lingerie shops are not as fun-loving as one might otherwise be inclined to imagine.

At any rate, on our most recent shopping adventure, and with no lace-lined, liquid-filled, super push-up brassieres to converse with (Clerk: “Sir, why are you talking to the bra?” Me: “I’m complaining to upper-management. Get it? Upper-management? Har!”) I cast my bored eyes around the store and spotted a small display of Crocs sandals.

To the uninitiated, Crocs are a sort of rubbery-resin clog-type sandal that is available in a wide range of colors, none of which you would particularly want to display on your feet. Here is a small sampling of some of the colors they come in:



Feeling fairly certain that donning a pair of these loopy loafers would produce the desired comic effect without requiring yet another call to my bail-bondsman, I slipped on a pair in so-called “Army Green” to model for my better half. The instant my feet found themselves inside these sandals, my mouth involuntarily exclaimed, “Whoa! These things are comfortable!” I’m not kidding; I have never tried on a pair of shoes that felt more heavenly than these. They make your favorite and well-worn bedroom slippers feel like a two-sizes-too-small stiff pair of rental bowling shoes by comparison. Of course Crocs aren’t as attractive as most rental bowling shoes, but hey, you can’t have everything. I left my own shoes behind on the floor and walked around the shop in the Crocs for a bit just to see if my first impression was mistaken. If anything, they felt more comfy the longer I wore them. My poor feet were practically singing for joy. I was in fact so caught up in my bipedal rapture that I failed to notice my wife had walked up to eye the grotesque things on my feet. “Nice shoes,” she observed dryly, “Are you going to get them?” “You actually like these?” I asked in astonishment, stupidly oblivious to her sarcasm. “Well they’re a bit different, but then so are you,” she said, and with that the deal was done. I left the shop $29 poorer, but with tootsies feeling like a million bucks.

I wore those Crocs for two days straight but then had to set them aside to wear something more appropriate for Wednesday night Vespers. My feet were quite unhappy to leave their comfortable new home, and so the next day they carried me back to the shop to buy another pair in “Clergy Black”, or at least that’s what I call this new color. I wonder if I am the only priest to wear a cassock and Crocs to church. This much I know: if word gets out about how gosh-darned comfy these ugly sandals are, I probably won’t be the only priest to wear them for very long.

Get a pair, mate. Croc-ey, you’ll love ‘em!