Surprise! Borsch's Wife Has Superior Fashion Sense

OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Attempt to buy new pair of 'Chucks' gets off on the wrong foot
Published: Tuesday, February 22, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Because a shoe goes on your foot, see.

Much of what The Blonde Accountant says makes sense. Unfortunately for her, sometimes I prefer to make nonsense.

Uh-oh. Yet another column about how Borsch's wife knows more about fashion than he does. What a creative man!

Take shoes for example. There is an entire closet in our house devoted to shoes. Her shoes. She can be considered, without a doubt, a distinguished Imelda Marcos fellow at the University of Heel and Toe. She sports a master’s and a doctorate in footwear fashion.

Women own multiple shoes! And men never put the toilet seat down! HAW!

It is on our shoe store excursions that I fall woefully outside my element and I do not quibble over that. The shoe store — while a necessity of life — holds no special appeal to me.

So it was with no sense of pending conflict that I followed her into the shoe store last weekend, content with my usual moment of browsing followed by the ever-present desire to locate the nearest bench and nap peacefully and without incident.

How many of his "columns" have referenced sleeping on benches while others shop? Definitely a motif in the Borsch symphony.

And then I stumbled past the display that featured black, high-top Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars on sale for $36 a pair. Commonly known as “Chucks,” these canvas sneakers have been around forever. My dad had a pair of white Chucks back in the 1960s and I believe he wore them for 30 years. They were just that cool. Today, Chucks have become somewhat of a fashion statement for young people.

Oh no! Could it be that our zany protagonist will buy a pair?!?

Keep in mind that shoe sales have commonly been the spontaneous trigger for The Blonde Accountant’s Happy Feet Dance, an aspect of the shoe store experience that I actually enjoy and someday hope to get on video to share with you all.

This will never happen, because this "dance" does not exist.

Chucks for $36. How great is that? Happy dance, happy dance, happy dance.

See? Only in his diseased dome are do these dances have any reality.

My first inclination was to try on a pair and pirouette across the shoe store to where The Blonde Accountant was shopping to show her how good I looked. But me pirouetting across the shoe store might raise eyebrows because — and I know this may be hard to believe — I am not that graceful. So I decided to wait for her to make her way back toward the men’s section and surprise her with my find.

“You look ridiculous,” she said without hesitation as she came around to the aisle where I was standing, pant legs hiked up to show off the glorious pair of spanking brand-new black, high-top canvas Chucks.

The Blonde Accountant is too much the prototypical "straight man" to be real. She never laughs, never jokes, never plays along. She is eternally bland, practical, and reserved. I would rather read a column written by her.

It was not the first time I had heard that. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life looking ridiculous, so I am quite used to that type of reaction, especially from women.

I guess the only fashion statement that black canvas high-tops Chucks make for old guys is that, “Yes, I am an idiot.”

I can't disagree.

“Wait. These are cool shoes. They’re classic. And they’re on sale!” I said as I broke into my version of the Shoe Sale Two-Step. (I would add that the lightweight Chucks appear to be perfectly conducive for just about any aspect of the Happy Dance.)

But she turned without further comment and headed toward the check-out counter with her shoe selections, leaving me holding nothing but my pant legs.

That's a vaguely disgusting sentence, out of context.

It appears that my innocent desire to have a pair of Chucks — which I probably haven’t had since I was a kid — failed to take into account that The Blonde Accountant has spent quite a bit of time trying to teach me a sense of style when it comes to clothes. For her, the Chucks do not fall into the category of How I’d Like To Have My Husband Look When I’m Out in Public With Him. They have fallen into the same category as Hawaiian shirts and Panama hats, which is to say they are on the Mike Restricted List of Idiotic Fashion Statements by 51-Year-Old Husbands.

Wait, he's only 51? We've got at LEAST 11 years until he retires. Kill me.

Of course, I reached out to family and friends for help on this one. Older Daughter thought the Chucks were OK for me to purchase, as did Daughter of Blonde Accountant. Younger Daughter and Son of Blonde Accountant fell into the other camp. My Facebook friends were mostly all pro-Chucks, but my Facebook friends do not often have to be seen with me in public.

Much to their relief.

I even called Dad of Blonde Accountant for some help.

“Did you ever wear Chuck Taylors?” I asked him on the phone.

“Ya, when I was 10,” he said.

Thanks Pop-Pop, that was absolutely no help at all.

Truth: Dad of Blonde Accountant hates Borsch with a passion. And how was that statement no help? He answered the question! "Wear Chucks?" "Yes. Here's when." Doesn't Borsch, ya know, interview people for a living?

I have continued to lobby for the Chucks but I’m thinking about a change of strategy. Instead of buying a pair for stylin’ and profilin’ purposes, I have decided to take a more logical approach. I’m going to use them for my regular walking workouts once the weather allows me to get outside full-time.

So intead of buying the shoes and wearing them, he's going to... buy the shoes and wear them. Nice.

After reading this column (she always gets the first read and nothing appears in print without her OK), she turned to me and said:

Before we start this made-up exchange... If it's true that TBA has "first read" on all his columns and still allows them to be published, she's just as much to blame for this as he is.

“Ok, I’ll make a compromise deal with you. You can buy the Chucks, but you can’t wear them anywhere.”

“Not even in the house?’ I said.

“Nope. You can leave them in your closet.”

Would a real wife suggest such a thing? Maybe. But this begs the question: how did the column originally end, before TBA read it and offered that "compromise"? It's obvious that Borsch has never re-read or revised anything. Therefore I must conclude that the above exchange, like all the others, never took place.

Well, I guess compromise is indeed the key to a successful marriage. I may save the driving time to the shoe store and actually just leave the $36 in my closet.

Because when it comes right down to it, The Blonde Accountant is right. She is the shoe expert and she knows how she wants me to look when we’re out in public.

Oh! This comes as something of a let-down, doesn't it? I thought for sure we'd get a scene where he buys the shoes, and maybe the person at the register gives him an odd look, or a colleague mocks his choice of footwear. In fact, just about anything would be better than: "Can I buy these shoes?" "No, they wouldn't look good." "Hey yeah, you're right."

After all, shoes make the man. All the Chucks will do is make me look like a heel.

How exactly did he arrive at this realization? Just a couple paragraphs ago he really wanted these shoes. No big epiphany?