By Jim Hagarty
2015
A man’s life progresses through only a few predictable stages: sex, suds, success and sitting. But try as he might to avoid it, he will eventually end up in the final and most important phase: slippers. Whatever priorities he might have chased down the decades, there will eventually be only one main question to be answered in his life: Has anybody seen my slippers?
Slippers have been important to me since my 20s but now they form one of my key essentials for life along with water, air and potato chips. A few years ago, a glorious pair of bedroom footwear sat under the Christmas tree for me. The two main events in a man’s life are the birth of his children and new slippers for Christmas. Some free advice: To win a man’s love, get him slippers for Christmas. And don’t cheap out.
My new slippers and I enjoyed our days and nights together, even on out of town trips as they went everywhere with me. Then suddenly one day, things changed. The slippers stretched into almost a size too big for me and they began to feel like flip flops. They became, inexplicably, way too big. I began tripping when I wore them. I tripped up the stairs and down the stairs and sometimes even on simple strolls from the living room to the potato chip cupboard. If it was possible for them to trip me when I was standing still, I am sure they did that too. I stopped wearing them in the bathtub. Too dangerous.
“These slippers are going to be the end of me,” I yelled to anyone several times a day. The pets started fleeing when they saw me slip on my indoor footwear as they knew an emotional eruption would soon follow. I began to call them my Killer Slippers and recently they sent me flying headfirst into a wooden chair which carved me up like a jack o’ lantern.
Only one solution and it would be drastic: Ditch the slippers. I asked for a new pair for Christmas and arrangements were made. New slippers wrapped and ready for service Sir! Yes Sir, Sir!
Yesterday I was cleaning up the garage and found some other slippers. They fit perfectly. Like long lost friends. I looked more closely at the Killer Slippers. They belong to my son who has bigger feet than me. He abandoned them years ago: They were too big for him.
Here are the six stages of a man’s life: sex, suds, success, slippers, sitting. And senility. I had put the big ones on by accident one day years ago and never took them off.
Christmas is cancelled.
