Old shoes seem a great deal more comfortable
By Mary S. Roder
Date Modified: 10/08/2009 10:24 AM
E-mail article | Print version
One rainy night my husband and I went to play a few games of pinochle with friends. We kicked off our wet shoes just inside Ellen's front door.
The entry was wall-to-wall shoes by the time everyone had arrived and we all stayed in stocking feet for the balance of the evening. We left earlier than the others as we planned to leave at 5 the next morning for a nine-hour drive to Wichita.
Daughter, Ann Marie, told us to bring some party clothes along to Wichita to wear to a Christmas Madrigal production we would attend. My black heels were getting tacky and so a few days earlier I bought new ones.
While packing I changed my mind about taking the new ones along. I picked up the ones I had worn home the night before and wondered why I ever thought they were too worn out to wear. They looked fine. I put them into my suitcase, reasoning that if I forgot them or had to wear them in snow or rain, I wouldn't be taking a chance on ruining the ones I had just purchased.
Back to the card party evening. When our friend Shirley went to get her shoes from the entry to go home, she was surprised to see hers missing. The only pair left for her to take looked to be past their prime, were a different style and a half size smaller than her own. The truth was, they were black pumps, and that was the extent of their similarity to the missing shoes.
She didn't expect me to call immediately upon recognizing what I had done, knowing we would be on the road very early. Our trip coincided with one she and her husband were taking. Before she left on her own trip, she told her daughter about the shoe swap so that when I called she'd understand what I was talking about.
Shirley returned two weeks later and found it hard to believe that I had not called about the shoes. The morning after they returned, she saw me walk up the aisle in church. She told me later she poked her husband and said, "Look, she's wearing my shoes!"
She had certainly expected that I wouldn't continue to wear them after discovering they weren't mine. I, on the other hand, had decided these old ones were much more comfortable than my new ones and looked nice, so I was wearing them a lot.
Shirley thought she might never get her shoes back if she waited for me to confess my mistake. She phoned me and asked, "Mary, what shoes are you wearing to the party tonight?"
I was baffled. The question sounded like something a teenager might ask, and that didn't describe mature and savvy Shirley. I answered her, describing my new shoes. She responded, "Since you won't be using them, could I borrow your black leather shoes with the shiny band across the toe?"
She was laughing and I didn't have a clue as to why she would ask that or what she thought was so funny. Before I could come up with a response to her startling question, she explained further, "What I am really asking is, could I have my shoes back? You took them last month after the card party at Ellen's."
The fog lifted in my brain and I now knew why those shoes didn't look tacky. I was mortified to think I had never realized they weren't mine. I promised to return them that very night.
As soon as I hung up the phone I went to my closet and dug around and found that I had two pair of shoes alike -- almost -- one pair was black, the other was brown. Even though I didn't take my own shoes, at least I took some that looked familiar.
I put the pilfered pair into a shoe box with a note of apology and a small bottle of holiday spirits. At the party, I put the gift-wrapped box under the Christmas tree with the other packages. Shirley was the only person at the party to have Santa bring her a second gift. Getting a pair of shoes from someone was certainly most unusual and so she told all 70 ladies at the party about the mix-up.
I came out far better than she did in that deal. Now the shoes I buy for myself are a half size larger and much more comfortable. In addition, I won't make that mistake again. My daughter didn't want to risk having me duplicate that embarrassment so she gave me a roll of labels to stick on the soles of my shoes. Each label says -- "THIS IS MINE.''