Columnist Susan Snyder: ‘The Other’ visits the other side

Tuesday, March 20, 2001 | 8:18 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

The Other's finely tuned sense of humor was in fine fettle.

Minutes after we'd paid Cashman Field's $3 parking extortion (for a $6 craft show) and found a parking space for the Great Craft Show, the griping thinly veiled as joking began.

"Should I start my timer now, or when we get to the door?" The Other said, coyly reminding me of his hourlong attention span for such doings.

"Look! A parking lot full of Utah cars!" he added.

Har har. Don't quit the day job.

Friends were amazed I'd talked The Other into attending a craft show without medicating him first. Granted, there are many men who adore going to handicraft shows.

I simply don't know any of them.

And a fair number of other women are in the same pickle, judging by the people who entered the show Saturday afternoon about the same time we did.

Out of 15 entrants, three were men. And all three were in the company of women who also either had imposed their hard-won power or made deals.

I was buying lunch.

The Other, having made this journey before, strolled patiently past booths of figurines made of horseshoe nails, footstools with cowboy boots for feet and pots of ball-point pens made to look like flowers without asking even once, "What's that for?"

As a matter of fact every time we stopped so I could examine a bunny-rabbit rag doll or a cow bar stool with an udder, I'd turn around and find The Other studying framed postage stamps or bamboo tabletop fountains.

We ate our way through the food booths, tasting jalpeno jelly, smoked cheddar butter, orange-flavored almonds and spicy soybeans. Was I supposed to buy lunch?

Surprisingly, The Other even seemed interested as I spent half my allotted time at Mini-World Kansas. Bev and Bob Haley, of McPherson, Kan., make wall hangings from teeny-weeny farm animals and rural images that Bob cuts with a scroll saw and hand paints.

Thousands of tiny goats, barns, hearts, apples, Amish people, horse-drawn buggies and other miniatures filled the trays of their display.

"I told him no more until we get caught up," Bev said.

She was half-joking, half-scary.

"He's been doing it for 20 years," she added. "We've been married for seven."

I'm thinking 10 ain't going to happen if he doesn't lighten up on the weensy cows and pigs.

I chose animals for my wall-hanging and others for a sister-in-law. The Other even helped. He didn't seem to mind not being in the center of the aisle among those of his kind.

Young ones who harbored illusions of "winning" sauntered with jaws set and arms folded across their chests. Those with age and experience strolled casually with shoulders dropped and hands in pockets.

One man simply sat in the food court with a huge soda and a newspaper. As if on cue he looked up long enough to admire his partner's latest find. She scurried off happily to find another treasure. He continued reading. Such flawless choreography comes only with years of practice.

"I'm basically done," The Other said on our second walk through Glue Gundom. "But you take your time. I'm just tagging along now."

Practice, practice, practice.