My husband has many unique attributes –some quirkier than others, but my favorite “Timism” has to be his distinct approach to making friends with everyone he meets. Remember Ferris Bueller? That’s what it’s like being married to this guy. The world is just waiting to be Tim’s new friend.
Saturday, Tim and I (and our littlest girl Kolby) hit the mall to do some Christmas shopping. But I made sure to lay down the ground rules before we left the house.
The rules were:
- No spending four hours debating over a single present. That means we get in, we get out and we do not make dinner plans with our new best friend –the retail associate.
- No negotiating over prices in loud obnoxious voices. This is the Mission Viejo Mall not the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.
- No buying man purses.
- No strange behavior.
First we went to the Apple store, where in less than four minutes I had purchased a gift for my daughter that starts with an “i” and rhymes with mad. (Sshhh!!! Faith will be so excited).
I knew exactly what I wanted and quickly made the purchase. Just as I reached out to grab the receipt, Tim walks up with his new Apple BFF (some random retail dude) and I have to redo the order because I now have a $10 discount. Then Tim and Apple guy start talking religion and technology and ten minutes later I excuse myself and head over to Pottery Barn. I browse for a long time and then call him and leave a frantic text message to extricate him from the store.
Then we go and try on perfume at Nordstrom’s. I find one I like and my husband debates eau de toilet vs. perfume with the lady –for another twenty minutes. Once again I have to drag him out of the store because he has made a new “she-friend” and they have exchanged business cards.
Now we go to the hair kiosk and try on extensions and he makes another new friend with the hair lady. I just love extensions because I have baby fine hair and sometimes, I wear them, and pretend I am a blond Kardashian. Please don’t ask me if I have them on. If my hair looks awesome just assume I do and if it looks stringy and like Rogaine would do me some good, you can assume I don’t.
Tim likes extensions too. Sometimes he wears them and I pretend he is Fabio.
Then we go to every single kiosk in the mall to look for the perfect iPad cover for Faith and another one for Tim. I bought him an iPad for his birthday in November and apparently he needs a different iPad cover for all the different ways you might ever want to use an iPad…like on a gondola in the Alps, preaching a sermon in Tuscany, or dancing in the Bahamas. So there’s the mountain man iPad cover, pastor iPad cover, techno Ipad cover…and so on and so forth.
I’m dying here because all the stupid cases look the same but my sweetie has to check out every single freaking one before he can make a decision. Then we run into our friend Dan and now we have a shopping posse.
Dan joins us as we head into Brookstone and my husband decides to climb into the massage chair. The whole store gets a play by-play account as Tim’ calves, arms and derriere are massaged by the a-ma-zing chair. Tim tries to negotiate with the young girls on the price and asks them very loudly to knock off $1000 off the large price tag. They laugh and think he’s cute and weird and I crawl into a hole…and die again.
We head to lunch at Nordstrom’s café and have a lovely meal with Kolby and Dan and then inevitably, we go to the man purse store –Tim’s favorite place at the mall.
And I’m sucked in to his excitement because he’s like a little kid amped up on Lucky Charms and he’s so excited to try all the bags on and find just the right one to fit his new iPad and make him look like James Bond.
Kolby found one too.
We have a new name for the man purse. It’s now called a holster and if you call it a murse Tim will pull out his gun and he might have to shoot you if you mock him.
And I buy him a new holster because I am sucked into the vortex of Tim Keller and his exuberance. And this man is so stinking energetic and adorable and friendly, he’s like Lassie and you just can’t help yourself from loving him because he’s contagious and absolutely priceless.
And that’s probably why he has over a thousand friends on Facebook and it’s why I go to bed every night with a smile on my face (though he might tell you it’s for another reason).
