Happened several years but illustrates the point about pilots and their families.
One evening a friend who’s a pilot came over for dinner with his new non-aviation-experienced girlfriend. They had a good time playing with our daughters through dinner. I think she may have put this evening together as a “kid test” for him.
Anyway, after dinner my wife goes to put the girls to bed and the other three of us make our way to the garage. The girlfriend had been feigning interest on some of the airplane talk so I was showing her the aeronca project that I was working on in the garage.
The conversation turned to my airplane just out of annual. He asked how much it cost, I told him $1700, he says yeah, that’s pretty darn good for a twin. The girlfriend is in shock, she asks me “It cost $1700 to get your yearly inspection sticker from the DMV for your plane ?!?” I tell her it’s not exactly the same thing but yes, that’s basically it. Then I remember and tell my friend that that didn’t include the tires, 3 new ones together added almost $500 with tubes. Probably only needed one but figured I’d just do em all. She’s got the “$500 for tires” shocked look on her face. She’s sure we’re aliens now.
Then I see the shoes on my workbench, and I remember that I have to finish those by Monday. They ask what I’m doing, so I explain that my daughters’ dance school changed the costumes for the recital and told everyone to get brown tap shoes instead of black.
I say heck, those brown shows are $40 a pair, I’m not paying $80 for shoes when I’ve already got these black ones. I’m gonna paint ‘em.
My buddy looks at them and says they’re pretty slick, I say yeah I need to put some zinser primer on first. He looks around my garage and offers that kilz seems to be more flexible, might be better for shoes. We open the kilz and start painting.
Then I notice the girlfriend, she’s backing away from us like you would from a coiled rattlesnake. Then she runs in the house, I can hear her telling my wife what we’re doing. I hear my wife ask which shoes we’re painting, she says “the girls’ black tap shoes!” and I hear my wife drop something and come running down the stairs. She sticks her head in the garage and says “those shoes are shiny, be sure to use some kilz first”
