Single Shoe Syndrome.
A regular columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch named Elaine Viets wrote about daily life before she became a successful mystery novel writer. For example, how an occasional trip to White Castle is good for "flushing out your system." She once wrote about what she called "Single Shoe Syndrome," which is the odd fact that shoes are always found on the road singly and never in pairs.
Many reasons come to mind for this phenomenon, but more research is needed. On the Internets we find The Mystery of the Single Shoe and The Single Shoe Spotters Research Project. Both these efforts are obviously underfunded, and more research is needed to discover the truth. Until then, we can only document the evidence with photos and ponder. For me, there is sadness in a shoe without its mate and without its owner.
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6 comments:
It's not easy to lose a shoe without losing a leg. I think losing two shoes together would be even harder.
The reason we don't find legs on the roadside is because organic matter decomposes, of course. Leaving only the shoe.
Is the shoe lost or was it cast off? Misplaced or discarded? These are the SSS Unsolved Mysteries.
Oh yeah, and where's the other shoe? That's another one.
i once lost a shoe at a violent femmes concert. someone stood on my toe (not 'stepped' because they did not immediately remove their foot) and i lifted my foot up and it came out of my shoe.
there was no bending down to retrieve it as i was likely to be trampled. we stayed after the show (does anyone else remember the boathouse??) to look for it to no avail.
maybe it was taken by someone who was anxious to reunited it with its partner and owner. maybe it was just shoe theives.
iirc, it was a navy blue and tan striped chuck taylor (low tops obviously). sigh.
Ah excellent, Erika, thanks much. We need more reports like this to further our research. Are you sure you didn't throw your shoe at someone? Many are proponents of that theory. Just trying to be complete. And where is the other shoe now? Did you throw that one out the car window? Do you have repressed feelings of anger? Perhaps toward your parents? Would you like to fill out a short questionnaire?
it was my RIGHT shoe.
i CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE TOOK THE SHOE. i saw some guy after the show holding someone else's shoe and yelled at him. that person wants their shoe back!!
i kept the LEFT shoe for a long time, but i MAY have donated it to the goodwill. for the person who just has a left foot.
incidentally, i do have one lone flip-flop currently in my closet. its mate is lost in my closet.
you should really turn me in to those lone shoe researchers. who KNEW i had such a shoe problem? i mean i knew i had a shoe BUYING problem, but never a shoe LOSING problem. gosh!
I'm not good at math, but...
1) You can't lose a shoe if you don't have one.
2) The more you have, the greater chance there is (according to the Law of Large Numbers) that you will lose one.
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