After lunch on a cloudy Friday afternoon, the arrival of the mail meant good things. Trisha could count on there being a check from home to deposit in the bank, with rain looking imminent, she grabbed an umbrella and headed down to her car with the check to deposit it in the bank downtown. Trisha wore what she wore to class that day, red shorts, a t-shirt, and white flat closed-toed mules. Trisha drove downtown to the Athens First Bank to deposit the check. The street the bank was located on was one way so she parallel parked on the left side the same side the bank was on. On the way to the bank, it had begun to rain lightly, then moderately by the time she arrived. Since it was not far from the car to the door, Trisha decided to make a quick run for the door. She made it without getting too wet and when she got in she had a line to wait in to do her business. While in line, she dipped in and out of her left shoe, repeatedly lifting her foot and letting the mule slide down to the floor. On the way out it was raining much harder, Trisha wished she had brought that umbrella now. She made a mad dash for her car, working hard to keep her shoes from sliding off along the way, and fumbled with the key a little trying to get the door open. Trisha finally got the door open and leaped into the driver’s seat and got her right foot slung under the steering wheel. She then whipped her left foot toward the car but the heel of her shoe caught on the edge of the car and got knocked off. In her haste she could not stop her momentum of sliding her foot inside the car and closing the door. Thinking there's no danger, Trisha hesitated in disgust that she had to get wet again. She re-opened the door and now noticed fast flowing water in gutter next to the curb. She jumped out of the car and struggled to get her umbrella open and looked under car to see that her shoe was gone. Trisha looked downhill and saw the shoe floating about 30 feet away. She ran one shoe on/one shoe off toward floating shoe and almost got to it as the mule boat plunged into storm drain disappearing from sight She bent down to look into the drain and saw the shoe was hopelessly gone, underground in the storm sewer network. Trisha returned to her car soaking wet and missing a shoe and drove back to her dorm. She was quite a sight coming through the lobby of the sorority house sopping wet and missing a shoe. One sister stopped her and asked what happened. Trisha told the story in shame and went to her dorm room and kicked the mate-less right shoe under the bed in disgust. Trisha rode with Shelley out to the Georgia Square Mall one Saturday afternoon. Trisha wore blue pedal pusher pants, a print blouse, blue dress flats, and a blue ribbon in her hair. They planned to do some window-shopping and relax a bit before studying for Monday tests. First, they got some lunch at Chick-fil-A and sat at one of the tables out in the middle of the dining area. Trisha crossed her right leg over left and her shoe was too loose to stay secured on her foot. She soon was dangling her shoe form the tips of her toes in a rhythmic motion up and down. Eventually she got tired of that and uncrossed her legs and dipped her feet in and out of both shoes flat on the floor. They were obviously slippery and a little too big for her feet - they had probably stretched a bit since she bought them. Her conversation with Shelley centered on mutual friends and sorority stuff, nothing too serious. They went to the Lemstone bookstore to look at some fashion magazines, and to get some ideas for the upcoming Winter formal. Trisha again put on a dipping show while standing at the magazine rack. By the time they left to go down toward Rich’s, her heels were practically slipping with each step. About halfway there, they were on the second floor next to the railing, and saw a guy both knew from church, Tim, who began to chat with them. Trisha stood with her back to the railing and was a little nervous because she had a little crush on Tim and wanted to make a good impression. She unconsciously began dipping with furious rhythm. One particular dip she would regret, though. She lifted her right foot out of the heel of her shoe and lifted the front of the shoe off the floor with her toes. She lifted her foot too high causing the shoe to fly off her foot and backwards, just fitting between the slits in the railing. In the loud mall, her shoe hitting the floor below made little noise and Tim did not notice, and neither did Shelley. Trisha did not want to call attention to her problem so she did nothing. A minute passed and Tim left. She looked over the rail and did not see the shoe - it had fallen behind a bench out of view. Trisha subtly tells Shelley, "You won’t believe what happened! Look down. My shoe fell through the railing." Shelley replied with a little snicker, "No way! I don’t see it down there. What happened?" "It must have dropped off and fallen between the railing. We’ll have to go down and look for it." "We’re not near a way down. We can catch the escalator over to the left though." They both walked toward the nearest escalator downstairs, which was about a 90- second walk away. Meanwhile, a mall janitor came by where the shoe lay, walking in a direction away from the escalator Trisha and Shelley were boarding, and picked up the shoe and put it in his pants pocket. He then proceeded toward the Mall Office to give it to Lost and Found. The girls retraced their steps on the first floor and found the location where shoe fell. They searched frantically with no success. Trisha suggested, "Maybe someone turned it in to one of those stores. I’ll go in this one and you try that one." Shelley agreed and they talked to the clerks. Meanwhile, the janitor got paged to go to other end of the mall to clean up mess in foot court before he was able to get the shoe in to lost and found. Trisha’s store clerk suggested they go to lost and found, which they did, but they missed the Janitor who had turned around and gone down a different corridor. They eventually got to the mall office to report the lost shoe, but it was not there - yet. Trisha left them her name and number and a description of the missing shoe in the case someone turned it in. Trisha and Shelley decided to go home without finding the shoe. The janitor finally made it to lost and found and put the shoe in the box. The employee who took Trisha’s name and information saw it and immediately called the number Trisha gave her. Since the girls had not gotten home yet, she left a message on the answering machine telling her the good news and that she could come and claim it anytime. On the way out, Shelley began to ponder the chance of the shoe ever being returned, "It’s probably long gone by now, someone took it as a souvenir or it’s been thrown away or something." Depressed, Trisha replied, "You’re probably right. What am I going to do with this single shoe? It’s worthless by itself" Shelley suggested they have some fun with it before discarding it. Isn’t there a verse in the bible that says, "Over Edom I will cast my shoe? Let’s see if we can throw your shoe over the Middle Oconee River? It’s not terribly wide near the bridge up here." After some doubt, Trisha gave in to this odd sense of fun. They pulled off the side of the road and they argued over who should try first. Shelley ended up trying first and she heaved the shoe over, landing a couple feet past the bank. They walked across the bridge over to the other side and Trisha attempted to throw it back across. She pulled back her arm and slung the shoe as far as she could, but the shoe fell into a shallow but murky part of the river away from the current and about 15 feet from shore. "Oh well, I wasn’t going to get the other shoe back anyway." Shelley and Trisha, now barefoot, returned to the car and they returned to the dorm. When Trisha got to her room she was surprised to find a message on her answering machine saying they had found her shoe. She ran down to Shelley’s room to fuss at her for talking her into casting her shoe into the Middle Oconee River, but also to ask her to go with her to retrieve not only the shoe at the mall but also the one in the river. Trisha and Shelley changed into some old clothes and drove back out to the Georgia Square Mall to claim the shoe from Lost and Found. The clerk asked Trisha about the incident, "I hope you don’t think I’m nosey but how did you lose the shoe?" "Well, I was standing on the second floor next to the rail and it fell between the slits down to the first floor." "I’m sorry you had this trouble. The janitor, who turned in your shoe, was not suppose to pick up the shoe without making sure the owner was long gone. Here’s a $50.00 gift certificate that can be used in any store in the mall." Trisha enthusiastically thanked her and they left the mall quickly for the Middle Oconee River. They parked the car where they had done only an hour before and tried to locate the place the shoe had landed near the edge of the river. They waded their rain boots in the muddy water and muck for half an hour to no avail. Darkness set upon them so they decided to try again early the next morning. Overnight a cold front came through and Athens got about an inch of rain, by the next day the river was about 3 feet higher that it was the day before. When Trisha and Shelley got to the river they knew it was hopeless. They surmised that her shoe was on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. Trisha returned to the mall after class and used the $50.00 gift certificate to replace the lost shoe with a new pair similar to them. She kept the other shoe, the one lost and found at the mall in the back of the closet just in case. .