The park was fairly crowded that day so just about everything they did involved standing in a long line. Of course the park was big enough to require a lot of walking as well. Trisha developed a blister on her right heel from her shoe slipping up and down. To alleviate this pain, she dipped this shoe frequently while in line for various things.
They stopped for lunch at a hamburger stand and enjoyed a nice non-nutritious lunch and some fun conversation. This blister was beginning to bother her so when they got seated, Trisha dangled her right shoe to give her some relief.
“Did any of you happen to bring a band-aid? I’ve got a bad blister on my right heel.”
None of the girls brought purses and Amber replied, “I don’t think so. I just brought as little as necessary and what I could handle without a purse.”
Shelley suggested, “Why don’t you just crush your shoe heel and walk on top of it - you wear those sort of shoes often anyway”
Trisha though that was a good idea, so she did just that. She happily continued on her way with the other girls.
By mid-afternoon it was really hot so they decided to wait in a long line to ride the Log Flume - hoping they would get a little wet. They did get wet but mostly their legs and feet. Trisha’s shoes were particularly soaked and they were a bit slippery.
Jeannie suggested they ride the Flying Swing - a ride where you sit strapped into a single seat and the ride swings you in a circle 25 feet or so off the ground. She thought the swinging while a little wet would serve to further cool them on the hot afternoon. They got in line again and finally got seated for their ride.
This ride offered the option, to anyone who wanted, to remove his or her shoes since the ride left your feet dangling for the whole time. Trisha forgot about her right shoe heel being crushed to make a backless shoe and she got on the ride without taking off her shoes.
During ride, she noticed her shoes getting slippery. Her right shoe slipped down to where it was only halfway on her foot. She tried to push it back on, but it was slippery from the log flume ride. Then the ride gave a jerk as the swings rocked to the side and her shoe fell completely off, falling toward the ground 25 feet below. Because of the ride’s speed, neither Trisha nor any of her friends saw the shoe land - therefore they had no idea where it went. It happened to take a bad course. It fell on the roof of a nearby snack bar and slid down the roof falling to the ground outside the 8-foot park boundary chain-link fence.
When Trisha got off the ride she was disgusted with what had happened and showed her friends she was missing a shoe. They quickly split up and looked around in the area encircling the ride, they asked a few people standing around if they saw the shoe fall out of the sky, but enough time had elapsed to where these people being asked were mostly out of sight when the accident occurred. No one had seen it.
Eventually, Amber asked the operator of the snack bar where the shoe hit the roof and he said that something had hit the roof several minutes ago. Looking at the ride and the possible path a fallen shoe could have taken, it seemed like a reasonable chance. Trisha got a boost from Jeannie and she looked on the roof and saw nothing. Shelley just happened to look down into the grass behind the building and across the fence and saw something white resting on a clump of grass, about 12 feet away down the sloped bank that was immediately across the fence from them.
They asked the shop manager for advice what to do. He called Six Flags park security and left a message with them about what had happened. About 15 minutes later a security officer came and took a look at where the shoe lay.
“I’ll have to page some people and get something long enough to snag the shoe. We really have no good way to access the land on the other side of the fence. We’ll have to get it from this side. It might take a couple of hours.”
Trisha asked, “So I guess I’ll have to walk around in one shoe until then, huh?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the best we could do. It could have been worse. One time, a lady had the same thing happen when the Chattahoochee River was up and her shoe floated away down the river never to be returned. Two other times, shoes have apparently vanished not to be found at all or known where they landed.”
With that, the girls decided to go ahead and try to enjoy their day. Jeannie took off her socks and let Trisha wear those on her bare foot to protect her from the hot concrete. It also gave the appearance that she was missing a shoe for a physical problem with her foot. If anyone had asked, she could have shown him or her the blister, too.
They stood in line a long time at the Georgia Cyclone and finally got to ride it and they had a good time. This took almost the whole 2 hours so by the time they were finished, they returned to the place the shoe was lost. They saw the maintenance workers standing on the roof of the snack bar with a long pole used to tighten high light bulbs in the ceiling of the Crystal Palace. The grabber was just long enough to reach her shoe and toss it over the fence for Trisha to replace on her foot and return the socks to Jeannie.
The foursome stayed until park closure and the great fireworks show and tried to forget the one dark spot on an otherwise fun-filled Saturday.
NOTE: This story can also be found at Dangling.Com.