Have you ever noticed the
”
one shoe on the side of the road
”
epidemic? What is that? How does it get there and why are there
so many? Do people do this on purpose like when they tie the laces
together on a pair of shoes and throw them over a telephone wire?
Is it meant to be funny?
Have you ever noticed the “one shoe on the side of the road” epidemic? What is that? How does it get there and why are there so many? Do people do this on purpose like when they tie the laces together on a pair of shoes and throw them over a telephone wire? Is it meant to be funny? I don’t get it if it is. And besides, where is the other shoe? Why would you keep only one? Someone picked up one of those single shoes the other day and put it up on a fence post near my house as if the owner would drive by, see it and joyfully bring it home to reunite it with its lonely mate.
I can’t think of a circumstance that would cause this phenomenon so regularly. I have never lost one shoe on the road. This has been bugging me for years. Every time I see a sneaker or a sandal in the bike lane I wonder how it got there and where the other one is. We count them as a road trip game.
A few weeks ago I actually found myself driving behind a car with a pair of men’s dress shoes on the rear bumper. We were right behind him as he pulled into a parking lot and I couldn’t wait to ask him why they were there and how long they’d hung on. When I informed him that he had shoes on the back of his car, he was surprised and totally unaware that they were there. I asked him how he thought they might have gotten there, hoping to solve this mystery once and for all. He thought about it and remembered that his wife had unpacked his car from a trip he’d been on and she must have left them there on the bumper.
OK, now here is what I still don’t get: Why would you pull shoes from the rear of your car and then balance them on the bumper and walk away? If you already have them in your hand, why not just bring them in the house? I know this is probably starting to sound pointless, and yes, there are far more important things to ponder, but I really don’t get it and I need to know what it is that so many people are doing that involves leaving your shoes on your car. Is “oops, I left them on my bumper” seriously how hundreds of shoes land blocks or miles from each other on the side of the road? This is a far more disappointing resolution to the mystery than I anticipated. I understand how a man on a motorcycle loses his hat to a gust of wind and I’ve seen people drive off with groceries or a laundry basket on the top of the car … but losing one shoe? That’s not a good enough answer. I’ll tell you why this bothers me so much.
When I see that single shoe, I see a half of a pair. It’s stranded and alone and represents the end of a relationship. It’s a dismembered team of two that can’t function without it’s other half. I think of married people who have spent their lives together and unfortunately, and perhaps suddenly, find themselves without their spouse. Maybe they can’t figure out how to power walk through the rest of their life on one foot. Instead they rest there on the sidelines watching the world go by, tumbling in the gusts of semi trucks and being examined with mild interest by passers by. It’s the saddest thing in the world I think, to lose your other half.
I know we aren’t supposed to have compassion for inanimate objects. It’s not that I feel sorry for the shoe, it’s what the shoe represents to me. It’s half of a partnership where one is useless without the other. Maybe this kind of human/object relativity is what compelled my neighbor to pick up that shoe and set it on the fence post. Unable to reunite it with its soul mate, at least someone gave it some hope and a little dignity.
