Wednesday, July 23, 2008

why do you always see one shoe on the side of the highway?

ever been driving down the interstate - or on the entrance ramp to a major highway? what are you bound to see? a shoe. not shoes, but shoe. a single shoe. sometimes it's a red high-heeled pump, sometimes a casual buster brown. often you'll see the kids gym shoe or the occasional Pro Keds sport shoe. i don't recall seeing too many Nike's on the side of the road. but none-the-less, you will see a shoe. it's usually dirty, in a mud puddle or next to someone's misplaced empty bag of McDonalds garbage.

who leaves these shoe there? does someone throw them out the window when driving? was little Junior sticking his feet out the back seat window when mom hit a pot hole and alas his shoe fell off? i have my theories as to how the red pump is there - but what is a female escort doing on the side of the interstate? there are no corners there. and the casual dress shoe... was some guy walking to work along Interstate 77 and without noticing he walked right out of his shoe? i wonder when he finally noticed. maybe when he arrived at work. it would be really ironic if that dude worked at Payless Shoe Source or something.

i can hear the conversation now.
"Hey Roger where's your left shoe?"
"Oh, I was so intent on getting to work that i literally walked right out of it."
"Ha ha ha ha" (a collection of hearty laughs would no doubt follow)

well the next time you see such a shoe - remember - with every missing shoe is a story of some guy named Roger or some kid named Junior or some escort named Destiny.

or maybe this mystery of life has no answer. many o' men will no doubt spend the majority of adult life trying to solve it, no less. i hear it's now being offered as a major at Akron U.

2 comments:

teganc said...

somehow when we see this it always interprets into someone getting hit by a car. I know how sad and wrong but that's just always the thought....
i always wonder about people who throw their shoes over power lines.?

Leslie Vorndran said...

This situation causes much concern in my life: Why does this happen? What happens to the Other Shoe? And, wouldn't someone in need love to have the discarded shoe, or its now missing match? During our cross-country drive several years ago, I tried to take pictures of those single shoes along the way, but we were usually cruising along too quickly to snap more than a blur. And that quickly, a shoe was forgotten...

(By the way, have you noticed Paige Medlock's current profile picture on Facebook? Destiny?)