Today’s no-comment only-in-Detroit story:
Wife’s severed arm leads to arrest.
And great details:
A Romulus man whose wife mysteriously lost an arm early Sunday has been arrested and is expected to be arraigned Thursday on several charges, including drunken driving causing serious injury, police said today. Stephen Humphrey, 39, is now in the Monroe County Jail. His wife, 34-year-old Brenda Humphrey, arrived at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Superior Township missing her right arm. Police have searched for days for both the crime scene and the missing arm but have found neither.
If you find an arm lying around somewhere in southeast Michigan, please contact the authorities.
The weather here is perfect. All week, perfect perfect perfect, edging toward “a bit warm” by the end of the week, but otherwise, el perfecto. So let’s dispense with the weather chitchat and let me ask your opinion of a question currently gripping Casa NN.C:
Is the phrase “strappy sandal” redundant?
Alan, Mr. Editor, claims it is. He remarked upon it after finding the usage in a Wall Street Journal story about the flirty new skirts, or something like that. The writer remarked that the flirty new skirts require just the right strappy sandal.
He remarked that it’s the nature of a sandal to be strappy, that strappiness defines the sandal at its core, and to imply otherwise is, well, stupid. Like calling a shoe “soley,” perhaps.
I argued that there is indeed such a thing as a strappy sandal, and I couldn’t define at which point an ordinary sandal tipped over into strappiness, but that I knew it when I saw it.
This is a strappy sandal. This is not.
“So a strappy sandal has, what, extra straps?” he asked.
“Basically, yes.”
“That’s really stupid.”
Alan then noted my Teva sandals, which have noticeably more straps than his Teva sandals, and wondered if those were strappy. Of course not, I said. No Teva can ever be strappy. Strappy sandals are dress shoes, or dress-up shoes, or at least dressier shoes, but utilitarian? No.
Men just don’t have Shoe Eyes.
Any other mysteries of female clothing you want explained? Leave them in the comments.
alex said on July 6, 2006 at 9:07 am
Strappy sandal. Kind of like saying Heely pump, which of course nobody says because “come-fuck-me shoes” nails it so much better.
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Dorothy said on July 6, 2006 at 9:27 am
I’m with Nancy. The more straps a sandal has, the strappier it becomes. I have a pair of sandals that is one big leather hunk with room for toes to peek out. Then again I have sandals that have several skinny straps – hence a Strappy Sandal! It is definitely NOT redundant.
And Alex, pumps can have various size heels. You’re talkin’ 2″, 3″, or the kind you so sweetly mentioned.
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colleen said on July 6, 2006 at 9:51 am
Ahhh. FM shoes.
Birkenstock: Not strappy. Jimmy Choo: Strappy.
Alan is wrong. But he’s a boy, they don’t “get” shoes, as a rule.
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Scout said on July 6, 2006 at 10:05 am
I’m not even a shoe freak and I get the distinction. Strappy evokes a night at the theater or maybe some dancing. Definitely not redundant.
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Jessica said on July 6, 2006 at 10:09 am
The critical parameters are the width of the straps and the proportion of strap-covered to bare skin.
Ask these guys if they would call a fisherman’s sandal strappy. I think they’ll get the difference.
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Nick said on July 6, 2006 at 10:10 am
The popular name for “come-f*ck-me shoes” that I remember was “FMPs”.
I know the difference between strappy & not, but I’m a man who likes women’s shoes (not in a filthy-dirty way, or an I-like-to-wear-women’s-shoes way, but more of a nice-pair-of-strappy-sandals-on-those-swell-gams way).
A quick Google image search on “sandal” and “strappy sandal” may convince Alan of the difference. I would make a wild guess that he has never been seriously involved with a woman who owned more than 20 pairs of shoes at one time.
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Dorothy said on July 6, 2006 at 10:25 am
All this shoe/men talk is taking me down memory lane when I was a young lass of 18, newly employed at a corporation in Pittsburgh after high school. One guy in the marketing department was forever commenting on my shoes. I never really “got it” until a few years after I left. I always thought he was so sweet – until the phrase foot fetish entered my vocabulary!
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mary said on July 6, 2006 at 10:32 am
I have a pair of strappy sandals that I last wore about four years ago, on a date with someone twenty years my junior. We went to the Santa Monica Pier and then dancing. I’m describing the perfect strappy sandal evening, for anyone who doesn’t get it.
He still calls me, by the way.
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brian stouder said on July 6, 2006 at 2:17 pm
“until the phrase foot fetish entered my vocabulary!”
LOL!
Now if you were wearing, say, ruby red slippers (and by the way, weren’t those shoes more like oxfords? or maybe I’m thinking of her Kansas shoes), why then I understand completely!
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JEFF HAYES said on July 6, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Ola,
I just googled and there you were. How are you and yours? I hope well. Drop a line if so incined-Jeffrey
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brian stouder said on July 6, 2006 at 2:36 pm
btw – one of Nance’s linked bloggers and all-around good person, Amy Welborn, got a nice writeup-with-accompanying-photo in the J-G over the long weekend
check it out –
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/living/14944800.htm
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Dorothy said on July 6, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Brian my family gave me the spiffy new DVD of Wizard of Oz for Christmas, but I haven’t even broken the cellophane on it. Then again, it was on Turner Classic Movies the other night, and I put it on while I was sewing away. I kept doing the lines along with the actors without even looking up at the screen. But you’re right – I think her Kansas shoes were like oxfords, but her rubies were more like pumps with pizazz. And of course, magic powers.
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