if the shoe were on the other foot

the other day i am walking across that skybridge that connects nordstrom with pacific place and i see something that stops me in my tracks: a shoe. it's a man's shoe, off-white with woven leather, something between a sandal and a slip on. i've scoured men's shoe sites and can't find anything that bears more than a vague resemblance to it. (which doesn't bode well for the guy who lost the shoe.) unfortunately, i didn't think to use my camera phone. and that was a prime camera phone moment. what was i thinking?

anyhow, it's a new-looking shoe, so i'm wondering what the heck it's doing in the vestibule of a mall (or pseudo-mall, as the case may be).i mean, every once in a while, you run across a kid's shoe in the grocery store or wherever, and it's understandable. kid's lose shoes. but how does a grown man lose a shoe and not notice? ok, maybe it didn't fall right off his foot. but that begs the question: why was he carrying this shoe around with him at the mall in the first place? and why would he not notice that it had gone missing? when that vestibule is empty, it has quite the echo factor, so he'd surely hear it drop if he was alone in there. and if there were a lot of people around so that the noise was muffled, surely one of his fellow shoppers would have rushed to return the shoe to the guy. c'mon, this is seattle.

i've been baffled by this lone stray shoe phenomenon for as long as i can remember. i most often see them abandoned on roads. however, i finally did get an explanation for those that sort of makes sense. or amuses me, at least.

years ago, my ex-boyfriend was involved in a road rage situation. i forget what started it or how it escalated. anyhow, the then-boyfriend does some final-straw move like flip the other driver off or something and a representative from the other car THROWS A BOOT AT HIM! A BOOT! i thought it was hi-larious! of course, i wasn't in the car when it happened. if i had been, i would've been mortified and would've long before been telling him not to act like such a moron that it got to that point, but since he did, i thought it was a hoot that somebody actually launched a boot at him. they missed his car, thankfully. i don't think i would have been laughing so much if they'd caused damage. anyhow, i told him, i always wondered where those lone shoes on the road come from. now i know.

so if you see a proliferation of abandoned shoes on the road, blame it on road rage.

i am still not quite certain about all the socks that make it onto the roads and sidewalks. however, my theory is that these are the socks that have escaped from the dryers and are heading to florida to retire. that is how far they make it until they just give up. i have to say, some of them go a respectable distance.