OluKai

"These aren't going to work."

I turned around to see Stephan coming in the door and promptly kicking off his new flip flops. My heart sank. I've been trying for 3 years to convince him of the magic and wonder of flip flop footware. I thought I'd finally convinced him numerous times, but he'd always been somehow displeased, and kept comparing them to some strange brand of flops that I'd never heard of and were proported prohibitively expensive. This time I had really thought I'd got him.

"No?" I said.

"No," he replied, then told me how the flip flops were hurting his feet. I sighed, another attempt in vain. But the last thing I wanted was for my flip flop ambitions to rub my husband's feet raw.

"Well, you can return them," I commented. And he did.

A few days later, my mother pointed out that our waterbottles were the kind that had BPAs. I'm still not sure what that means, but it's something to do with water that sits in the bottle leeching something - these BPAs - out of the plastic. These BPAs then take a free ride to your belly whenever you take a swig. This explained many mysterious tummy aches. We promptly threw the bottles out.

A few days later still Stephan suggested we stop into HTO and buy new water bottles. While there, he said "let me look at the flip flops." My hopes soared. I may yet get him into a pair of "thongs", as the Aussies say. I followed, flipping along in my own 10-year-old black Reef flops.

He looked around a little, then went to a rack of flops and decidedly pulled a pair off.

"These are the OluKais," he said, slipping his feet into them. I approached and examined them closer. OluKai - that was the brand he'd raved about but had said was way too expensive. I remembered now how much he'd said he liked them years ago.

"Well, how much are they?" I asked, watching him walk around. He told me and I snorted. "That's not bad for a shoe you'll wear for 10 years," I pointed out. Stephan shugged and kept on shuffling around. "I guess I don't buy new flip flops every summer."

I glanced back at the rack, very intrigued. I casually pulled a pair of the lady OluKais off the rack and dropped them to the floor. I paused only briefly before pulling my foot out of my own flip flops - my 10-year-old black Reefs, the ones I'd worn all over Europe...the one's that had saved my tennis shoes from getting drenched in the sudden rain storm in Interlaken...

This is no time for sentiment, I told myself. I'm merely trying these on. Stephan's the one whos in the market for flops.

I think I now know what Cinderella felt like when she slipped her foot into that glass slipper, the one that fit only her foot. These were undoubtedly the most comfy flip flops in the world. Suddenly the foot still in my old sandals felt like it was loosly strapped to a plank of rotting wood. I shod myself in both sandals and took a lap of my own - then hastily returned them to their place on the rack. We weren't there shopping for me. "You must get these," I said to Stephan. "They're amazing."

After a little more insisting, and after wading through the "light leather or dark leaterh?" quandary, Stephan decided he would get the pair he'd tried on first. Then he asked me what I thought of the pair I'd tried on.

"They're heavenly," I said. I'm sure I was starry eyed.

"Heavenly, huh?" he said. He didn't even pause before grabbing the pair I'd liked most and held them out ot me. "Then let me get you a heavenly present."

I'm usually the kind of wife that asks "are you sure?" But this time, I merely threw my arms around his neck and hugged him. You have to understand - I believe flip flops are a state of mind, not a seasonal item. I wear mine 12 months a year - even in the snow and ice (provided I'm not going to be outside too long). I hike in them. I go to church in them. I wear them to work. They're the closest, socially-acceptable thing to being bare-foot that's out there, and I am very close to my 10-year-old pair. Only something stellar would have convinced me to upgrade - and these were stellar, and Stephan was letting me get them.

I have the best husband in the world.

We left that night with new kicks (Stephan calls his "my fighting OluKais!") and new water bottles, the making of happy bellies and happy feet. Stephan's simply the best...I know he loves me, but I think he was a little relieved to see the Reefs suplanted. And to my great joy, I am too!