The other day I opened the bedroom door only to recoil in horror. There, on the bed, was my wife, and she wasn’t alone. She had her computer with her and she was innocently shopping on line for a simple black dress.

On a danger scale of one to ten, shopping on line is at least a 14. I don’t care how smart you are, or how shrewd a shopper you think you are, you are no match for a computer which, as we all know, has supernatural powers.

“You won’t get away with one dress,” I said.

“It’s all I need.”

Naturally, I was right. On the screen was that black dress. Below it were the words “Other People Also Bought…” with pictures of enough dresses to restore modesty to every model in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

I tossed out an intellectual chuckle.

“All I want is the black dress,” she said, typing in much too much information for a single item.

That, dear reader, is how computers are taking over. They have short circuited those battles of wits which, with the disappearance of hunting and gathering, is all that’s left to make us strong.

I decided to show my wife how it’s done, so I whisked her off to a nearby Nordstrom’s men’s department.

The salesclerk, a young lad in a gray suit and highly polished shoes hammer locked me with a firm handshake, an obvious attempt to win me over.

“I want a pair of shoes exactly like these,” I told him, pointing to the Ecco slip-ons on my feet. “I’m a size 9 1/2.”

“Watch,” I whispered to my wife as the lad peered at my shoes, “he’ll tell me they no longer make them.”

“They no longer make that style,” the lad said. I turned to my wife and gave her a wink I can proudly describe as supercilious.

“I suppose you have something better?” I said, letting him know I was wise to his game.

“I certainly have something less worn,” he said. I silenced my wife’s laugh with a sharp look. Talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

He steered me to a table that featured the Ecco line, and picked up a gray lace-up casual, a cross between a tennis shoe and a comfortable walking shoe.

“We’re selling a lot of these to writers,” he said, glancing at my writer’s hat. “My colleague just sold a pair to Aaron Sorkin.”
“Really?” I said, stifling a yawn. Aaron Sorkin? The notion was utterly ridiculous, although he and I do share a certain air of casual intellectualism.

Although the shoes were mildly unique, I pointed out a pair of brown slip-ons to demonstrate who was in control. The lad disappeared into the back room.

“And now the fun begins,” I said to my wife as I rubbed my hands together. “He will return with four boxes. One box will hold the shoes I want, but in the wrong size. One box will hold the shoes in the right size, but in black instead of brown. The other two boxes will hold totally different styles and, by some strange coincidence, more expensive than the shoe I selected.”

“Here you go,” the lad said upon his return. I gave my wife a knowing look, for he was balancing four boxes in his hands.

“Your size in brown.” I tried it on and was underwhelmed.

“No thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep looking.”

“Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t help you today. Perhaps next time.”

I smiled at my wife. “Total surrender,” I whispered.

“But you don’t have a new pair of shoes,” she said.

“That’s not the point. The point was to let him know he can’t sell me something I don’t want.”

“I thought you wanted a new pair of shoes.”

“Not just a new pair of shoes, a new pair of these shoes.”

“But those shoes don’t exist.”

“So, I’ll wait.”

“For what?” my wife wanted to know.

I only bought the gray shoes that were in the second box as a stop gap measure, until Ecco restored my favorite shoes to their line. And I bought a more expensive slip-ons in case, as the lad said, I want to look less like Aaron Sorkin and more like Stephen King. We couldn’t decide whether King would wear black or brown, so I made the decision to buy them both.

“You might want to keep your old shoes,” the lad said as he laced the gray ones onto my feet, “There’s no sense risking good shoes in an El Nino year.”

We shook hands, and he promised that his wife and my wife would get together to exchange recipes.

“Well,” I sniffed, juggling three shoe boxes,”at least I’m wearing what I bought. You won’t be wearing that dress for days.”

“I suppose you’re right,” my wife said. “Why, you’ll probably be able to wear a new pair of shoes every day until my dress arrives.”

There was some sarcasm in that remark, I’m sure of it, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.