Marriage humor: No place like home among the gumboots

No place like home among the gumboots

I came to grips long ago with the fact that my wife Katherine is taller than me.

Heck, it is no big deal. A lot of the people in my life are taller than me: workmates, friends, my bank manager, and Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy and Doc in my stage debut in primary school.

Katherine, I must add, is not that much taller than me.

In fact, we discovered recently that we take the same size in gumboots.

Shopping for adult gum boots is fairly simple. Unlike kids’ gum boots which come in a multitude of colours, the shop we went to had just two types for grown-ups: shiny black for women and dull black for men. Why there is this fashion difference, I cannot explain. When a woman has been sloshing around in puddles or squishing around in pig swill for a bit, I doubt that her gumboots would be still be shiny and glamorous.

No matter. We went for the His and Hers option.

And I have to say, I was very happy with my choice.

The problem was, however, Katherine quickly realised that she was not so happy with her shiny black choice.

"Your gum boots are a much better fit than mine," she said. "Can we swap?"

Swap! I had no intention of parading around in women’s gumboots but, well, gee, what does a bloke say to a wife who is taller than him.

His and Hers became Hers and His.

In fairness to Katherine, this was only a temporary arrangement. In less than two weeks, Katherine bought herself a pair of dull black men’s gumboots the same size as mine.

Since my old dull black gumboots were now two weeks old and duller and dirtier than they used to be thanks to Katherine’s forays into the garden, I thought that it was only fair that I should get to wear the nice new ones. But I was mistaken.

Now we have eight gumboots parked outside the back door: two little blue ones for our toddler son Jack, two shiny black ones and four large dull black ones. Despite two of them having been marked inside with felt pen with a J and the other two marked with a K, this can be confusing. The other day I looked down to see that my left gumboot was on the wrong foot. Normally when your left gumboot is on the wrong foot you can safely assume that your right gumboot is also on the wrong foot.

In this instance, however, my right gumboot was a ridgy-didge right gumboot.

Katherine says I should not worry about the vacant pair of shiny black gumboots. She says that Jack will fit into them one day.

This will probably be so, but that is not what I am worried about most. My hunch is that Jack, who has some very tall male genes from Katherine’s side of the family, in the not-too-distant future will have feet big enough to fit into a pair of the dull black gumboots.

And guess who will be wearing the shiny gumboots again then!

First published in The Advocate, Burnie

©May 30, 1998 John Martin. All Rights Reserved

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