Miss Crocodile Shoes

She showed up to the funeral
In crocodile shoes

I didn't even know they made crocodile shoes
For women

Call me naive
I had no idea

She's the second wife
People expect her to be tacky

People were coming up to me
His family members, you know

They were saying--You're the good one
He should have stayed with you

What do you say to that?
I found it distasteful

Even though his widow is standing there
In crocodile shoes

I just wanted to come
And pay my respects

But pretty soon I'm sitting down
Next to his four sisters

Who hated my guts
When we were married

And they're telling me about my former nieces and nephews
And who's graduating college and who's addicted to drugs

Then I realize I gotta go say something
To Miss Crocodile Shoes

She's sitting by herself
Up in the front

He never had any kids with her
He never liked having kids with any woman he was actually married to

I'm trying hard not to speak ill of the dead
But death and absolution don't always go hand-in-hand

I sit next to the grieving widow
And I notice she's smoking an unfiltered something

And before I can stop myself I say--
'You know you can't smoke in church'

And she laughs
This kinda throaty, smoker's laugh

I remembered her being prettier
But then again I got out after six years
And she was there for sixteen
So I guess maybe she held up all right
Considering the circumstances

'Curtis was a mother,' she says
Except she finishes the statement
If you catch my drift

I say, 'Yes, he certainly was'
And then she says--'How you doing?'

Which I found to be very odd
Because we'd been divorced for over two decades
And as you've guessed, he wasn't a prize
So what do I care if he's dead

But then I started crying
I don't know why, but I did

And she took my hand
And kept staring straight ahead
And said 'Yeah, I know what you mean'

I wasn't crying because Curtis was dead
I was crying because I could have been the woman
Sitting next to me
And that shook me to my core

I have a nice husband
A nice house
And two great kids
And being back in a...

Well, in a Curtis situation
Just sort of shook me up

He threw me out, you know

I tell people I left him
And he never said anything against that
But the truth is
He put me out
Right on my ass
And I stayed there
Even when I begged him
To take me back

It was for some stupid reason
Like--I don't know
I didn't pay a bill on time or something
And he lost his temper
And things escalated
And I fought a little too hard
And that was that

I told him everything I thought about him
And when he saw that I meant it
He was done

He was just done
And I was out the door

At the time, I thought of it
As the worst moment of my life
And now I think--

Thank God

Thank God that man was so awful
And unfeeling
Otherwise I'd be sitting all by myself
Smoking in a church
Wearing crocodile shoes

I glad I didn't have to walk a mile in those shoes
They didn't look too comfortable