Trisha and Amber went to the Georgia Square Mall to go shopping. Trisha wore a red blouse, white shorts and white leather flat closed-toed mules. These mules were bought only a couple of months earlier to replace the one she lost getting into her car in front of the bank during a rainstorm, so they still looked practically new.
They first stopped to eat lunch at the food court. While munching on some French fries she dipped her mules a bit and then crossed her legs and began to dangle them, repeatedly letting the mule slide down near her toes and dangle them a little before slapping them back on. They talked about where they wanted to shop and what sort of things they wanted to buy.
Trisha and Amber soon left and they decided to first check out the shoe clearance sale at Rich’s. While walking that way, Trisha developed an itch on her left calf.
“Hold up a minute!” Trisha whispered as she stopped, lifted her right foot out of the shoe and scratched her itch with her big toe. She quickly replaced her foot into the shoe and they continued toward Rich’s.
When they arrived, they saw many customers there trying on shoes. They looked around at the main floor and saw some possible styles they liked. They were not ready to try any on just yet. Then they went to the side room where the clearance rack was. There, shoes were arranged on long racks by style and ordered by size.
Trisha stopped at a clearance rack and took off one shoe and left it on the ground, while she tried on a shoe nearby. She slid down in front of the rack, trying on size 6 ˝ versions of each of the shoe styles she liked. About 10-15 minutes later, she had slid down about 20 feet from where she left her own shoe behind.
Meanwhile another customer found Trisha’s shoe on the floor amongst about 10-20 other stray shoes that had made their way down there. Since it looked so new, she thought it was a new one for sale. It happened to be her size but she did not see the mate on the rack up above it. The lady took it to the sales clerk in the main room to see if he could find the match in the back.
Trisha went back to where she started from and did not find her shoe she had taken off earlier. She called over to Amber and they began to frantically search on the floor for her other shoe. Then they looked on the racks above to see if anyone had accidentally put it back there.
While this search was going on, Trisha’s shoe had been taken into the back room where the sales clerk looked for the box containing the other shoe to this supposed pair. He did, however, find a complete pair of the same style, size and color and brought that out instead. He unceremoniously tossed Trisha’s shoe into the mate less shoe pile in the back of the storeroom
The other customer took the box from the sales clerk and tried them on in the main part of the shoe department away from the counter. Trisha and Amber went to the front counter to report their loss to a different clerk from the one who mistakenly took her shoe in the back room. This other clerk returned with Trisha and her friend to the clearance rack to again look for other shoe still to no avail
While Trisha and Amber were in the Clearance room, the other customer purchased the pair of shoes from the clerk who helped her earlier and left the store. Her sales clerk happened to be at the end of his shift so he clocked out and left out the back room immediately after taking care of his customer. Trisha, Amber and their clerk were completely puzzled by the missing shoe
The clerk asked Trisha, “Is there was a pair you were planning on buying that you could wear home today?”
Trisha, being a little upset at the situation was not in the buying mood any more, “No, I didn’t find anything I wanted today.”
The clerk wrote down her name and number and the shoe style, size and color. Trisha and Amber left the store, missing one right shoe. Back at the dorm, Trisha kicked her single shoe off under the bed, and then remembered something from a couple of months back. She looked under the bed and found a new pair of white mules - a left one from today and a right one from two months ago - the remaining survivor from the trip to the bank in the rain. Trisha decided to never throw away another shoe again
The store never did make the connection between the shoe in the mate less shoe pile and Trisha's missing shoe. It eventually got donated to one of those companies that sell single shoes to amputees and people who have different sized feet.
NOTE: This story can also be found at Dangling.Com.
