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Happily Ever After

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Creatures of Habit

by Valerie Nusbaum

Randy and I were getting ready to go out the other day. I was in the office logging off the computer; I saw something on the screen that I thought would interest him, so I asked him to come in. He walked out of the bedroom and threw me for a loop. There he was, completely dressed, except for his socks and shoes. On his left foot was a sock and a shoe, and his right foot was totally bare.

“What the heck is that?” I asked.

“Huh? I was getting dressed when you bellowed. What’s wrong?” he answered.

To my knowledge, I’d never seen anyone put on socks and shoes in that order, and I was dumbfounded. I always put on both of my socks and then both shoes, always right foot first. I assumed everyone did it that way.

I decided to find out if Randy is as unique as I’d long suspected, or if there are others out there like him.

First, I needed to collect data. I posted a question on Facebook, asking my friends whether they dress each foot completely or put on both socks first. This quickly became known as “The Great Sock-Sock, Shoe-Shoe Debate,” with a surprising number of people weighing in. I posed the same question to friends and family in direct conversation, and I posted on an Etsy forum so that I could get some international stats.

Here’s what I found out: Eighty-one percent of the people I surveyed put on both socks first and then both shoes. Of those people, nine percent are male. These people are located all over the United States, Europe, Australia, and South America. Thus, the numbers are not gender-specific or regional. Less than five percent of the people I asked put on a sock and a shoe, and then the other sock and shoe. This means that while Randy is in the minority, he is not alone.

Both Randy and my dentist dress this way. The rest were women. If you think about it, Randy’s way is more economical of movement and it saves time. Clearly, the rest of us are trying to burn more calories.

I also learned that some people don’t wear socks, some people dress both ways, one person puts on shoes first and then socks (I think she was confused about the question), and my cousin sent me a clip from All In The Family, where Archie yells at Meathead for dressing the wrong way.

After having such fun with the sock and shoe question, I decided to take it further. I posted another question asking folks to tell me which leg goes into their pants first. I also asked whether people are left- or right-handed.

The results were much less dramatic for this question: Fifty-one percent said their left leg goes into the pants first. That makes me part of the smaller group this time, because my right leg goes in first, even though I’m left-handed. The dominant hand (the hand we write with) doesn’t seem to relate to the dominant leg; more people are right-handed, but more people begin with the left leg. Randy is right-handed and right-legged, but he’s left-shoed.

People kept asking me what the next question was going to be, so I decided to do one more.

I had recently heard about a study of finger length in relation to kindness. Yeah, I know, there’s a study on everything these days; the money and time spent on these things could certainly be put to better use, but I don’t make this stuff up. Anyway, this study stated that if one’s ring finger is longer than one’s index finger, one is surely nicer than a person whose index finger is longer. Guess which category I fit into? Yep, my index fingers are longer. From now on, when I’m in a bad mood, I can blame it on my fingers. Naturally, Randy’s ring fingers are longer, but I could have told you that without the survey. He’s a nice guy.

My survey found that fifty-two percent of the people I asked have longer ring fingers. Less than one percent said that their index and ring fingers are the same length, and one person said that on one of his hands the ring finger is longer and on the other hand his index finger is longer. And, yes, Miranda, I do know that the middle finger is the longest finger of all.

I don’t necessarily believe the findings of the kindness study. All of my friends were kind enough to participate in my silly surveys, not just the ones with long ring fingers. Gail even took off her pants and put them back on so she could answer question number two correctly. I hope she was at home.

The main thing I learned from all of this is that people get a kick out of exploring our differences. I’m sending a big thank you to all my local friends who willingly took part in this silliness. See you at Colorfest!

In closing, I want to wish everyone a happy Halloween. I’m thinking of dressing up as a clown this year. All my life, I’ve been scared of clowns and this might be the time to conquer that fear. I’ll put on both socks and then both floppy shoes, right leg first. Then I’ll go out and scare some little kids. Relax, it’s just my index fingers talking.

happily ever after

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A Friend, Indeed

by Valerie Nusbaum

“Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold…” A long time ago, I was a Girl Scout who would sit in front of a roaring campfire, toasting marshmallows for s’mores and singing that song. Sitting beside my best friend, Carey, I was secure in the knowledge that we’d be friends forever. Carey lives in South Carolina now. I occasionally hear from her on Facebook, and I’ve seen her at a few of our high school class reunions. We grew apart during high school, as kids will do, and we probably haven’t thought too much about each other during the last few decades. Friendships come and go; yet, sometimes friends come together again at different points in life. Maybe that will happen for Carey and me. Who knows?

Having lunch with a group of somewhat new friends the other day got me thinking about women and our friendships. I was taking stock of the conversation around the table, and I noted that we were talking about the World Cup soccer win for the ladies’ team, the best grocery stores in the area, gardening, and food. We weren’t gossiping about anyone we knew or sniping at each other about anything. We laughed a lot, and the conversation kept working around to business opportunities and marketing and sales techniques. Everyone in this particular group is an owner of a small business, making and selling original handmade items. I was impressed with the generosity of the women, and our willingness to help and support each other.

I came home from that lunch feeling proud of all of us. I sat down at my computer and shot off an email to my friend Kathy, telling her a ridiculous story about the new project I was working on, and that’s when it hit me again that we’re different things with different people. With Kathy, I tend to make jokes, and she and I tell each other things that I might not tell my other friends for fear that they’d think I’m not socially conscious. Everyone needs that one friend who lets us say bad things without calling us on the carpet. Usually, that friend reciprocates. At the very least, she laughs at what we’re saying.

Speaking for myself at least, my friends aren’t always other women. Over the years, I’ve had some wonderful male friends. Jay and I met when I was sixteen. We thought we might want to date each other, but then we realized that we weren’t that interested. Instead, we became the best of friends, and we shared years of escapades. We told each other about our love lives and didn’t hold anything back. Jay died before Randy and I got married, but they did meet each other once, and I like to think that, given time, they would have become friends, too.

I’ve been getting on Randy’s case lately, telling him that he needs more friends and that he needs to do some fun things with them. Perhaps go fishing? Randy’s response to that was a dissertation on the joy of fishing in solitude. My hubby is not much of a partier, and he isn’t overly competitive. Group activities don’t interest him much. Being a bit of a loner myself, I can understand his feelings. Sometimes I have to force myself to socialize, but in the end, I’m usually glad I did it.

We’ve tried “couples dating” in the past without much success. At one time or another, Randy has gamely gone out to dinner with each one of my close friends and her husband or significant other. One guy spent the entire evening telling Randy where to find the “best” of everything—best vacation, best food, best drinks, and so on. Another man demonstrated his prowess with a remote control, and promptly flew his little car out the front door where it crashed into a million pieces, falling off the porch. Yet another fellow fell asleep at the table and snored loudly. Worst of all was the time the wife (my friend) spent the entire meal telling us about a cat sitting on her husband’s head and loudly describing the cat’s anatomy. The other diners were horrified, and I tried to crawl under the table, all while her husband beamed. Granted, these nights out provided fodder for Randy’s repertoire of funny stories; he and I still chuckle over them. In recent years, Randy and I have met some couples who do share interests with us, and since neither of us has a prior relationship with either the man or the woman, we seem to be avoiding the crashes. Maybe we’re ready to try “dating” again. If not, I’m still very fortunate to have a husband who’s such a good friend—to me, at least.

As I’m getting older and, hopefully, more wise, I realize that of all the best friends I’ve had in my life, the one who has always been there for me is my mom. Granted, she lets me know it when I mess up, but she’s still the first person I think of when I have news—good or bad.

Having women friends of my own age and with similar interests allows me to talk about things I wouldn’t necessarily discuss with my mother or my husband. And, of course, we women can talk about our husbands, although I don’t do that…ever. I save that stuff for my newspaper column.