You know what Crawler, in terms of a strop for the long term, that one probably won't do, but in terms of learning stropping, and putting your razor on some leather it will do fine for awhile I'm sure.

Most inevitably nick and cut their strops when they start out, I did, and having a strop like that to learn stropping is probably perfectly suited to it's task - no problem.

While your waiting, grab a kitchen knife, one with a relatively straight spine, watch some stropping video's, and practice with the knife, keeping the spine on the strop, back and forth, getting a fluid motion - speed kills and will damage your "shave ready" razor if you roll the edge, another common mistake we've all had happen.

Any good piece of leather, denim, even newspaper can serve as a strop, but if the strop has leather, it should do for a couple of months until you've done some research around a strop that you'll want as a keeper.

Hope this helps...and you have a very considerate wife, good on her!