She wore khaki pedal pusher pants, a pink blouse and a pair of backless dark brown loafers. On way to town, she got a seat and dangled a little on the train. In a bumpy area, her shoe came off once. The train was too crowded for her to bend over so she slouched down in her seat and walked with her toes, stretching them just enough to grab the shoe and pull it back on.
After getting to the shopping area, she looked in a couple of shoe stores but did not see what she wanted at the price she wanted to pay. This disappointed her but she decided to grab some lunch before going to some of the clothing stores to look for a new dress or two.
She went to a sub shop that was known for good chicken salad sandwiches. She grabbed lunch and looked around for a place to eat. All of the regular tables were occupied so she had to sit at one of the high tables with stools. She preferred to sit at low tables because the stools at the high tables gave her problems. If she let her legs hang down, her shoes fell off very easily.
Trisha had to sit with one foot on one of the barstool and the other leg crossed. She had to flex her toes to keep the shoe from sliding off the barstool, revealing her well-manicured foot.. She slowly dangled the free shoe a little while she ate.
At one point some chicken salad fell off her sandwich and landed on her blouse. She jerked to grab a napkin to clean it of and this caused her foot to come out of the shoe, which then dropped beneath the stool. The other leg uncrossed knocking the other shoe off landing several feet away. Embarrassed, she first got down from the stool to retrieve the distant shoe. She then limped and reached under the stool with her toes to put on the other one. When she did, she suddenly felt something greasy and squishy inside. Some chicken salad had landed in her shoe. In disgust she shook shoe back off, picked it up off the floor and carried it with her into the restroom to clean the shoe and her foot.
After leaving the sub shop, she did find a couple of dresses on sale and bought them. After a little more window-shopping, it was time to leave. She returned to the MARTA Five Points Station, located conveniently at Underground Atlanta, to take a northbound train out of the station to go home. While standing on the platform waiting on her train to come, she dipped each foot and stretched and flexed her toes in succession. She was tired from doing a lot of walking that day. She also winced at the memory of the chicken salad on her toes and noticed that shoe was slippery from the mayonnaise that was not efficiently cleaned using the tools available in the ladies room.
Trisha was last in line to get on the train and when she stepped inside the train with her left foot, she was a little off balance and while picking up her right foot to place it in the train also, her toes came out of the now mayo-slippery backless shoe and the motion caused the shoe to fly off behind her about 15 feet. This made her stumble as she got totally in the train. Just as she re-oriented herself to get off the train to retrieve her shoe, the doors closed locking her inside one foot shoeless.
She looked for a conductor to stop the train from leaving, but she could not find one in time. Of course, he probably would not have stopped the train anyway. Trisha stood anxiously wearing only one shoe until the next stop - International Dr; then she had to walk off the train go up the escalator to the station, walk over to the other side and down a flight of steps - all wearing a single shoe. Some people noticed her one shoeless and gave looks of pity and probably wondered what happened.
Meanwhile back at the empty platform a homeless guy saw the single shoe and looked around for the owner, seeing none he picked it up and sniffed it. He noticed the smell of chicken salad but chose to ignore it and put it in his knapsack then drifted over to the end of the platform. Slowly more people arrived for the next train.
Trisha bought another token and went to board the southbound train, getting off at the original station. She had to repeat her steps from before and go up the escalator, across the station and down a flight of steps to the platform. She was unsure of where she had boarded the train and started looking frantically all along the platform area to no avail.
Just when she was about to give up and board the train for home, the homeless man saw her one bare foot, came over to her and asked Trisha if she wanted to “buy” a shoe.
Thinking that the man was just teasing her, she decided to ignore him. He then pulled out a red thong sandal out of his knapsack and showed it to her. She ignored him again and he put the sandal back in his knapsack. The man reached in his knapsack a second time and pulled out her backless loafer.
Trisha was very excited and said, "It's mine!"
The homeless guy said, “It is yours for $10.”
Trisha boldly demanded, “Give me back my shoe!”
He again insisted, “Only for $10.”
“That’s outrageous, trying to sell me my own shoe back to me.” Trisha then reached for the shoe.
This angered the man so he threw her shoe onto the tracks out of sight in the dark subway tunnel. Trisha was upset and yelled at him. She went to the security guard to report him, but while she was telling her story, another train arrived and the homeless guy slipped away.
She asked the security guard if there was a maintenance worker who could go retrieve her shoe. He explained that it was too dangerous to do that during operating hours. Then he said, “The maintenance crew works between 2AM and 4AM when the trains are out of operation. I would be happy to fill out a maintenance request for you. Can you identify where the shoe landed? Which of the 4 tracks you think it fell and where along the platform.”
They went out on the platform and she was unable to pinpoint either detail with much certainty. He took her local phone number and told her that there was a lot of equipment down there the shoe could have fallen amongst and that it is probably dirty and greasy where it fell. He said it was almost like finding a needle in a haystack.
The security guard then asked, “Do you want us to report the incident with the homeless man to the police. If you can describe him we can be on the lookout for him?”
Trisha completed the report for the security guard and then boarded the next train dejected about her lost shoe. She got off at her station and got into her car to drive home. When she walked in her house with one shoe her dad asked what had happened. She told him the sad story of her afternoon and then went upstairs to call a friend.
She kicked the shoe into the back of her closet where it stayed for several years and a few weeks later, she bought a new pair of backless loafers exactly like the one shoe lost. MARTA never did call her about that shoe, nor did they ever arrest the homeless man. That same homeless guy sneaked into the station around 2AM that coming morning and found her shoe safely on the tracks and put it in his knapsack where he added to his collection of about 25 single shoes he'd found over the last couple of years.
NOTE: This story can also be found at Dangling.Com.
