Whenever I take my son, Clyde, to buy new shoes, I am always reminded of the Cinderella story. Not because he wants the most impractical shoes in the store. (Glass slippers? I seriously doubt that OSHA is cool with that.) And not because he needs to have the shoes (and his feet) home by midnight, or else. (Although, actually, he does.) And not even, surprisingly, because the reason he needs new shoes is that he has left one of them—just one—behind somewhere. (Although, yeah, he does do that quite often.) And no, not even because shopping with a pre-teen makes me long for my own fairy godmother. No, the reason that I am always irresistibly reminded of the Cinderella story is that watching him try to put his old shoes on is like watching the ugly stepsisters trying to fit their feet into Cinderella’s shoes.
It’s ridiculous. The last time I bought him a pair of new shoes they were three sizes larger than the ones he was wearing. Three sizes. It took him nearly five minutes just to get the old shoes off; I don’t even want to think about how long it must have taken him to put them on that morning.
“Oh my God,” I said as I glanced around the store, half expecting to see someone run up to me holding a “Worst Mother in History” banner, “why didn’t you tell me you needed new shoes?”
“Eh,” he said with a shrug. “They’re fine.”
Fine? Women in Imperial China had more room in their footwear. So did the aforementioned stepsisters. But as far as Clyde was concerned, they were “fine.”
I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised at this. After all, this was the boy who showed up to first grade wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt he had outgrown at age two. At the time I thought that it might mean that he had a future ahead of him as a Southern California roller dancing champion (or maybe one of Gladys Knight’s back up dancers), but now I realize that the only reason he wore them was because they were in his drawer. And if they were in his drawer, they must have been his, right?
At least, that’s how Clyde saw it. And still does. I don’t know why I even bother having a light in his bedroom at all: his preferred method of dressing is to reach into a drawer (or down to the floor), grab an article of clothing, and put it on. Not clean? Not a problem. Not the right size? Not a problem. Actually belongs to his older sister? Still not a problem.
I suppose that this is so odd to me because his sister could not be more different. She is so picky about her clothes that I whenever I take her shopping I make sure to bring along a book; it takes less time for the President and Congress to come to an agreement on the national debt than it does for Clementine to find a new pair of jeans. (And, like the President and Congress, Clementine uses the sheer torture of the process to wear me down, so that in the end I accept a deal I never would have considered in the beginning. Ninety-five bucks for a pair of jeans? Sure: can we leave now?)
In a perfect world, I would have a child that was somewhere in between the two of them—somewhere in between the “why don’t you just give me your credit card and wait in the car” and “why don’t you just take your credit card and let me wait in the car.”
Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll ask for—the next time my fairy godmother shows up to help with the shopping.