“Sage and blush,” I repeated for the umpteenth time.
I was talking about the colors that our daughter selected for her wedding, and no matter how many times I said it, my husband didn’t understand what I was saying. Have you ever felt like you were speaking a different language than the person you were speaking to?
Well … not literally, when the person you are speaking to is actually speaking a different language. Like the workmen we hired to paint our house, who spoke only Spanish. In desperation, I ended up pantomiming and demonstrating the technique I wanted them to use—spray on and back roll for the house, and tape and brush for the trim. I’m glad we don’t have a Ring camera, because I’m sure I looked ridiculous wielding the paint roller and brush. In hindsight, I think they understood perfectly … they merely wanted a laugh, and my theatrics didn’t disappoint.
No … not an instance like that. What I’m really talking about is when the words you’re saying seem to be foreign to the listener. Or someone is telling you that you don’t make any sense, because they don’t want to understand what you are talking about. Guilty! No matter how many times my husband tells me about his golf game, I’ve never tried to understand the difference between a birdie, par, or bogey.
Well, it was payback time. I could say “sage and blush” a million times and he wouldn’t get it. The problem was that it was also crunch time because we had procrastinated going shopping for the mother and father of the bride outfits. There was no more time to waste; I would just have to show him. So, we set out to the mall to hunt for dress for me and a shirt, tie, and shoes for him.
We started our shopping trip with the low-hanging fruit—shoes. My husband’s uniform for years has included variations of black athletic shoes and flip flops. Surprisingly, he agreed that neither would be appropriate for the wedding. But not for the reason I thought … he was concerned about dancing! To place this into context, we never dance together. He will tell you he has no rhythm, which is true. He was kicked out of the school band as a kid because of it. But he was determined to dance at the wedding, and as he tried on each pair, he did a little jig in the aisle to test them out. And yes, I did have a camera rolling for that one!
With new shoes in hand—brown Florsheims with a smooth sole for him and sparkly closed-toe blush pumps for me—we headed to the next stop … finding my dress. UGH! First of all, the selection of dresses in sage or blush was very limited. The salesclerk said both colors were very popular this year, and the best styles were already sold out. Lucky me.
The even bigger UGH was the fact that nothing looked the way I thought it would. Remember when you could wear dresses right off the rack and they all fit and looked great? I didn’t want to leave the dressing room, to which my husband suggested that he could just come in with me. I didn’t let him in … there were other women trying on clothes, but I didn’t come out either. The dresses were nice enough; it was the body underneath that was not cooperating. I selected the best version of a formal sage dress, and frankly, it was the only dress that fit, although I added a full-body SPANX at the checkout. How convenient that the SPANX rack was positioned right next to the register!
My husband reminded me that there wouldn’t be any fashion police at the wedding to critique my outfit, which is probably true.
However, I’m not so sure if the same will be true for his wedding dancing.
