World's Oldest
Shrew - er, Shoe
by Walt
Giersbach
Archaeologists
have discovered what they say is the world’s
oldest known leather shoe. Perfectly preserved
under layers of sheep dung, the shoe…is
about 5,000 years old. While the shoe more
closely resembles an L.L. Bean-type soft-soled
walking shoe than anything by Jimmy Choo,
“these were probably quite expensive shoes,
made of leather, very high quality. Along with
the shoe, the cave [in Armenia] yielded evidence
of an ancient wine-making operation.” –New
York Times, June 9, 2010
If it
hadn’t been for my wife’s damn shoe, a
whole lot of things might have been different.
Take the wheel. That was my idea. A
wheel—two, actually—would’ve let
my wife roll over to the neighbors in style. Or
the idea of actually riding on those
animals—horses, or whatever. Those were my
ideas, but oh, no, my wife wanted me to be a
hunter. Every day, it was, “Get out of bed
and kill something for dinner! I’m tired of
having you hang around the cave.”
I’d just
come up with a perfect red wine—an
unassuming pre-prandial with hints of
blackberries and cinnamon. I was testing it when
my wife walked out on me. “Always with a
drink in your hand! I’ve had it,” she
shouted. “I’m taking the litter of
children and going to my mother’s.”
I begged her,
even suggested vacationing at the caves in
Lascaux might repair our marriage. “While
I’m gone,” she snarled, “you could
at least clean up the cave. I’m sick of all
the sheep dung you’re saving.”
I tried again
to explain how I was going to corner the methane
market and we’d all be rich, but she rode
roughshod over my explanation. Her last words
were, “You find my new leather shoe in this
pigsty and I’ll consider coming back.”
Women!
What’s a guy to do? I promised myself
I’d get right on it, as soon as I got the
wine perfected, the wheel invented and caught
that whatchamacallit, horse.
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