I took my nephew to the local park one day. He wanted to kick a ball around. None of his friends was in the park so I had to play with him. I was wearing jeans and a pair of old loafers. These loafers were well worn and had stretched so my heels slipped out of them as I walked. If I had realised that I would be kicking a ball around, I would have worn another pair of shoes. I was kicking the ball very gently to my nephew because of the looseness of my shoes. He wanted me to kick the ball harder to make it more fun for him. I told him that I couldn’t kick harder because I might kick my shoe off. He called me a soppy coward and that sort of thing, so I gave the ball a hard kick. Sure enough, my shoe came off and flew at him. He thought this was very funny but at least he picked up the shoe and brought it to me. We kicked the ball around a bit more then he asked me to kick the ball as hard as I could. I took a great swing at the ball. My shoe flew off and landed high in the branches of a tree!! There were no low branches so we could not climb up to it. We threw stones to try to dislodge it but could not reach the shoe with our throws. Eventually I realised that there was no way we were going to get that shoe out of the tree so I had to walk all the way home with just the one shoe on. My horrible little nephew thought the whole thing hilarious and pointed out to everyone we went past that his aunty only had one shoe on. As for the shoe, I never did get it back.
The second event occurred when I had to go up to London one day. I always take the train as I hate driving in London. It was one of those days when the trains were in chaos (signal failure somewhere) so when a train eventually arrived thousands of people tried to get on and the train was packed absolutely solid. We arrived at Waterloo and everyone tried to get off simultaneously and barge through the barrier at once. In the middle of this crowd I felt someone tread on my heel and I couldn’t stop myself from walking out of my shoe. There was such a crowd that I couldn’t stop to get the shoe back, I was just swept along. Finally I was able to escape from the crowd and try to get back to where I thought my shoe was, just then another overcrowded train came in and disgorged another crowd of passengers. Not a chance of getting to where I had lost my shoe and anyway, it had probably been kicked all over the station by the crowds by now. I made my way one shoe on to the taxi queue and got a taxi to Oxford Street. One of the girl assistants looked at me as I walked in the shoe shop and said “Waterloo?” I nodded yes and she told me that I was the third girl to come in on one shoe as a result of the chaos on the railways. I bought a pair of shoes and went about my business. I got back to the station at about three o’clock to get my train home. I went to the lost property office to see if my shoe had been handed in. The man behind the counter handed me a basket containing about twenty shoes, all handed in that day. I found my shoe, looking rather battered from the treatment it had got and by showing the man my remaining shoe convinced him it was mine. I still wear those shoes sometimes although among the other damage, the heel had been trodden flat by someone.
There is a third story to tell. Three of us went for a walk in the country the other day. We were sensibly dressed, no high heels. We walked along the footpath round a field and at the bottom of the field we came to a small stream. We needed to cross this stream to get to where we were heading. It was very small, you could almost, but not quite, step across it. We didn’t need to take a running long jump, just a little leap to get across. Jen went across first, no problem. Ellie went next and somehow, as she was crossing, her shoe fell off onto the stream. She said a very rude word. We looked down and her shoe was actually floating in the stream and what is more, the current was carrying it away. Jen and I followed the shoe, one on each bank of the stream. We must have followed it for about 50 yards before it knocked against a rock, capsized and sank. I eventually managed to get the shoe from the stream with the help of a stick I found and threw it across the stream to Ellie who had caught up with us. She put the shoe back on and immediately complained that it was waterlogged and cold. We could hear her every step as she squelched along with us.
(9/20/04) Another story: I’ve been away for a bit, to Amsterdam. It is a really super city, well recommended if you haven’t been there. Not so good for high heels though. A lot of the smaller streets are cobbled and the cobbles really grab your heels and pull your shoes off. That must have happened to me about a dozen times.
The other thing is the tram tracks. Running across the road I managed to get my heel jammed in one of these and ran right out of my shoe. I went back to get it but it was firmly wedged. Looking up I saw a tram approaching and had no option but to leave my shoe where it was on the track. The tram ran right over it cutting my shoe in half. I had to walk all the way back to my hotel in only one shoe. As I was wearing three inch heels I found it easier to walk with my shod foot in the gutter and my bare foot on the pavement. It made walking much more balanced.
(11/12/04)I have a pair of red sling-backs, two inch heels. The back straps keep slipping down and that turns the shoe into a mule; but a mule is designed to be worn as a mule, a sling-back is not and can be very difficult to keep on if the back strap is not in place. I find it a bit of a nuisance to keep pulling the back straps back up so when they slip down I often keep them like that. I am careful though to make sure they are up before getting into a situation where the shoes might be hard to keep on. So the other day I made sure the straps were up before I tried to cross a busy road. As I set off across the road, walking quickly because of approaching traffic, I could feel the straps slipping down. I had to keep going and of course the strap on my right shoe slipped completely off. At the same time I had to speed up because of an approaching car. You guessed it! My shoe fell off in front of this car. Now this driver was a gentleman. He braked hard and stopped just before he ran over my shoe. Many men would not have bothered to stop and would have left me with only one shoe. He grinned at me and indicated that I should recover my shoe from in front of his car. He never stopped staring as I slipped my shoe back on, making sure the back strap was secure, then got back to the pavement. I waved thank you to him and he gave me a great big grin. I think that he enjoyed the experience.
All the rain we have had recently has made the ground very muddy. There is a short cut I can take across the park. I don’t take this short cut if it is muddy and I am wearing heels, it is too much hard work to keep my shoes on. Yesterday I was wearing ballerinas so I thought no problem to cut across the park even though it will be muddy. What a mistake! Wearing heels in the mud, your heel sinks in and if it sinks far enough it can hold your heel so that you walk out of your shoe. Ballerinas are flat no heels to sink in. The problem was the whole shoe seemed to be gripped by the mud. I didn’t notice anything, no heels sinking in, until suddenly my shoe was off and my bare foot was in the mud! I slipped my muddy foot back in its shoe and then a few steps later the other shoe was off in just the same way, no warning at all! Now that short cut is no more than 100 yards, yet I must have lost each shoe a dozen times. By the time I got back to the pavement I was muddy almost to my knees and each step I took I squelched from the mud in my shoes.
(01/19/05) I thought you might be interested to hear what happened to me on New Year’s Eve. I went out with three of my friends, all girls. I had bought a new pair of shoes, specially for the night, they were like these, only silver:
We went round a few bars, met up with a few friends, the usual things. Walking between bars, I could feel the back straps of my shoes slipping down my heels and had to keep stopping to pull them back up. My friends noticed this and bet me that I would lose one of my shoes before midnight. Midnight came and we all gathered in the square in the middle of town to hear the chimes for the new year. I still had not lost a shoe, so at the stroke of midnight I claimed my winnings from my friends.
A great mass of us now linked hands in a circle to sing Auld Lang Syne. As we started dancing back and forward I could feel my straps slipping down again. I could not let go of my neighbours to pull the straps back up so they soon were completely off my heels. We finished singing and the circle broke up and everyone started kissing and hugging each other. In this swirling mass of people I suddenly felt my left shoe come off. I tried to break out of the mass of people to get my shoe back, but I couldn’t for a while. When I eventually broke free I went back to where I thought my shoe had comes off. It was nowhere to be seen. When I eventually met up with my friends one of them said that she thought she had seen a man pick up a silver shoe and put it in his pocket, but she was not sure. Anyway the night was still young so I went the rest of the evening with just the one shoe on. My bare foot got very cold and dirty and on my way home I threw the remaining shoe away into a rubbish basket.
Followup-commentary:
I was cross when I lost that shoe because they were a new pair bought specially for new years eve. Being in one shoe was cold and uncomfortable. Walking in one shoe is very lop-sided unless you walk with your shod foot in the gutter and your bare foot on the pavement. Also, you have to really keep your eyes open to avoid walking in dog mess or broken glass and so on, that is why I kept one shoe on most of the time. We did look for the shoe but there were so many people around that it was difficult looking for one particular person. We also thought that if he was the kind of man who collects shoes he would probably have made his way home as fast as he could. The loss was completely accidental but a shoe like that if the back strap slips down is always going to be hard to keep on.