Posted by droppedit on October 11, 2001 at 06:45:48:
Never ending stories about my wife and her shoe troubles continue. Another shopping experience, and real life as always:
She was shopping on that day in local fruit market, wearing pair of jeans, and pair of black slides barefoot. Those were open-toe, low heel, size 8. As she arrived a bottleneck in between the stands where crowd of shoppers had to move shoulder-to-shoulder, she tried to avoid the worst part of crowd by moving to the side. Doing that, she had to cross over a tight line attaching an overhead tent to the ground. She lifted one leg and put it across the line safely. But, as she lifted her other leg that remained behind, and as her foot and slide were in vertical position, someone hit her foot and caused her slide to slip-off and fall.
The errant slide landed across the line, and was possibly no more than a few feet away from where she stood. But, because of stampede of shoppers that blocked the way, she could neither see nor reach for it.
She stepped aside for a minute or two with her bare foot suspended, hoping that she could find a momentary gap in crowd to step back and reach for her mateless slide. But, this was unlikely to happen. So, she took courage to lift up her bare foot towards the people blocking her way and said: “Allow me please, I want my shoe back!”
After curious glances at her foot with missing footwear, a few shoppers moved aside to let her pass. But, as she stepped over the line, she realized in despair that her slide was no more where she had dropped it. It must have been dragged or kicked away.
She reclined down searching for it, and another woman helped her by keeping the crowd off. She spotted missing slide some 10 feet away. Its color had turned from solid black to whitish gray, because dozens of people must have stepped on it during the time it was unattended. She thanked this woman for having helped her, and put her slide back on. She quickly got out of that crowded market fearing that she might easily lose her footwear again.
Despite all the cleaning, the errant slide never matched the color of its clean mate again, and this pair was not worn outdoors again.