Historical April 1994 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
You never know what will show up at your door thanks to UPS.
It was a couple of years ago, the exact date is a bit fuzzy, and I was sitting at home, quietly conversing with Henry, my laptop computer, when the doorbell rang.
It was the United Parcel Service delivery person. Somewhat preoccupied, I signed for the package, paying little attention to its contents. True, I should have been more careful, maybe, just maybe, I could have headed things off at the pass.
But I was distracted because I was in the middle of writing a letter to Uncle Zeke.
He had a probation hearing the next month and I was offering him sonic sage advice. Zeke, you see, had gone to his last hearing wearing a T-shirt that said, “Cops are pigs! Up yours, society!” For some reason, his parole request was denied.
I was writing to convince him not to wear his favorite shirt, the one with- the big drawing of Charles Manson and J. Edgar Hoover, standing arm-in-arm, offering peace signs.
The package sat on the piano, outside of my consciousness until the first wife came home. “Wonderful,” she shrieked, picking it up and rubbing the box against her cheek, “they’ve finally come.” Her face was afire with joy. “What’s finally come, dear?” asked, looking up from Henry’s screen, holding a cigar in one hand and a chocolate-chip cookie in the other. (A man is nothing without nourishment.) Karleen wailed, “My first shipment from the SHOE-OFTHE-MONTH CLUB!” She was absolutely giddy with happiness.
The SHOE-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB! Can you believe it?
I was aghast.
My wife needs more shoes like the Menendez family needed more children.
Now mind you, I’ve nothing against “of-the-month” clubs.
In fact, in the past I used to belong to the Book-of-the-Month Club, and I am now a proud member of the Quality-Paperback -Book-of-thcMonth Club. Once upon a time 1 even belonged to the Tic-of-thcMonth Club. That membership didn’t last long, because the tics weren’t that great. “Funeral tics,” Cousin Gino used to call ‘cm, “the kind of tie you wear to a funeral, whether you’re coming or going.” I also used to belong to the Cigarof-the-the-Month Club.
Now ihoi was great! You’d simply put in your order for 100 or 200 Napoleons, Churchills, or Presidents (the names of the cigars were their best features), decide whether you wanted green or brown leaf, and bingo, they’d be shipped automatically from a warehouse in Tampa.
The Cigarof-the-Month brochure said that while it was true the cigars weren’t really from Cuba, these particular seeds had been smuggled out just before Castro came to power, and they were now grown in comparable land with a similar climate. Honest!
But those were the only of-the-month clubs that I joined.
I dont know, maybe I’m a loner or maybe I just have something against clubs.
After all, despite their letters congratulating me on my fine credit rating I turned down joining the Columbia Record-of-the-Month and the Real Rock CD-of-the-Month Clubs. And 1 didn’t join either the Jelly-of-theMonth Club or the Bread-of-theMonth Club. And I passed on the Pear-of-the-Month Club (which guarantees you, according’ to the ad in the New York Times. “tasty, succulent pears year-round, regardless of the climate where you live”).
I continue to get solicitations from the Video-of-the-Month Club, but since I don’t have time to read the books I get through the Quality-PaperbackBook-of-the-Month Club, I sure don’t want to order videos that I’ll never get around to watching.
But the wife is a different story. She’s a joiner.
When we were first married, she belonged to the Sweater-of-the-Month Club.
It originated in Scotland; if you gave them your size and season (Karleen is a “winter”), the sweaters showed up as if by magic on your doorstep each month. Magic and Mastercard, anyway. Shortly after joining the Sweaterof-the-Month Club she joined the Spoede China Plate-of-the-Month club. 1 couldn’t complain because I had just purchased a jukebox.
The Plate-of-the-Month Club was interesting, I’ll say that much for it.
The design on the dinner plates varied with the season. So naturally, in December she received a Christmas plate, featuring an evergreen tree surrounded by little teddy bears and wrapped presents.
In February the plate had a picture of Lincoln and Washington standing in front of the United States flag.
The March plate featured a leprechaun and the April one had a field of flowers.
My favorite, though, was the May plate depicting the all the race cars, engines revving and exhaust fumes billowing, at the starting line of the Indianapolis 500.
The wife belonged to the Plateof-the-Month Club for four or five years. Since our stove has been disconnected, we don’t cook, we have more dishes than we could ever hope to use.
After all, you cat Domino’s and Lean Cuisines right from the box, so who needs a plate? Fortunately, even she grew tired of the drawings on the plates and resigned.
It was clear that they had run out of good scenes; I mean, who really wants to cat from a plate with a picture of John Wayne in his “Hondo” outfit? Still, we wound up with four or five dozen plates, including the entire John Travolta series.
But the Shoe-of-the-Month Club? It’s designed for women with the centipede mentality: they can NEVER have enough shoes!
Each month the wife gets a pair of shoes, 6B for summer and 6C for winter with socks, delivered by UPS.
The shoes, she says, are quite stylish and not all that expensive. (Between you and me, I don’t complain too much because I figure that I’m ahead. Since she’s not going into the stores to buy shoes, she can’t save me money by purchasing all of the other bargains that she sees along the way.
I can only afford to save so much money.) The first pair she received was brown leather with a red bow on the toes. Because she’s “a winter,” she exchanged them for black ones with a red bow. (I don’t understand this at all, but I’ve learned not to argue.) Once the black ones arrived, she announced that she liked them enough to not just keep them, but name them as well. Shc feels that her shots are more personal if they have names, so over the years all two or three hundred pairs of her shoes were given names. So Larry and Lucy, black with red bows, are now firmly ensconced in her closet. Mike and Maria were the second pair.
I remember them clearly because they were a pair of yellow, leather tennis shoes. 1 told her that they looked like margarine to me.
All she did was roll her eyes; she kept wearing the shoes.
I remember Jennifer and Slater well.
They were boots, the kind that you’d wear to a motorcycle rally or Ross Perot speech. Others followed, one pair each month. Although I’m not sure of the order, our household was joined by Craig and Patsy, Esmerelda and Jose, Ralph and Trixie, and Sam and Rebecca (these arrived around the time of the “Cheers” finale) to name a few.
We became best friends with our UPS deliverers, Eddie and Karen.
Now getting a pair of shoes delivered automatically, each month, didn’t mean that the wife would cut back on her regular shoe purchases.
I foolishly raised that issue once and she said something that even if we had a pizza delivered once each month, we’d still have to cat other meals.
The logic of this escaped me, but I’ve learned not to ask or argue. Since we never throw away anything in our house, the collection of shoes grew larger and larger and larger.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that they were multiplying behind closed doors! Imelda Marcos would look upon my wife’s shoe army with envy. About a year ago “California Closets” came to our house to give a bid on turning our spare third floor bedroom into a shoe closet. You should have seen the look on the salesperson’s face when she left after giving us a bid for the work.
She was no doubt thinking of the aroundthe-world cruise that she could purchase with the commission on this closet, alone! Karleen didn’t want the shoes to feel claustrophobic, a healthy shoe is a happy shoe, so we went ahead with the renovation.
There were three workmen here for most of two days, creating shelves, using tiny nails to tack nameplates on the shelves for the shoes, and putting in rack upon rack upon rack for the shoes themselves. Oops.
I mean for Bruce and Denise, Paul and Paula, and so on. So all’s well that ends well.
The Shoe-of-the-Month company is certainly happy. United Parcel is delighted.
The California Closets salesperson is on a junket somewhere, smiling at her good fortune. And Karleen beams every time she goes to the shoe room to talk to her friends.
I just hope that Zcke doesn’t come here looking for a place to stay if he ever gets his parole.
I don’t know how he’d react to hear that he has to share a room with three or four hundred of the wife’s dearest friends.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April 1994.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1994_04.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
