Sunday August 22, 2004

The odd shoe

I was driving on the freeway on Friday. I love the freeway. Driving about in my car as quickly as I can, slower than some, faster than most. What a wonderful feeling it is to drive. Something about change. Changing your position over time with the subtle application of pressure on a lever. Such power that is afforded by this simple action.

As I drive, I can sometimes feel myself getting younger. Or at least I stop ageing for a short time. I love that feeling. Don't get me wrong, I don't tend to go near the speed of light, so Einstein's Relativity and its consequences with respect to time probably don't apply. I guess it just makes me happy.

On Friday as I was driving in the fast lane, I saw a thing that is very common yet interesting at the same time. A shoe. Not a dress shoe that might have inadvertently flown out of the car as some ecstatic driver began changing for his Friday evening while driving home. No, a simple tennis shoe. In the shoulder by the fast lane. It really makes you think, doesn't it?

How do these random shoes get scattered in places that people don't ordinarily move about as a consequence of wearing shoes? When either driving or riding in a car in the correct fashion, the shoe is probably the least likely item of apparel that would get inadvertently lost, isn't it? I mean, provided that you still have floorboards in your car.

I have seen folks that smoke and will hang their cigarettes outside their car. Sometimes I see them dispose of their cigarettes by simply dropping them as they drive. I have never seen someone do this with their shoe. Never. Does that happen?

A perplexing dilemma, really. Do the people notice only upon arrival to their destination? Perhaps it will come to their attention that they have one bare foot as they try to cross a hot parking lot. Maybe they travel with spare shoes because this has become such an annoyance. Perhaps they can be seen walking into a shoe store shortly afterwards, seemingly very prepared with one shoe already removed and their size on the tip of their tounges as if they have no time to waste at all.

I have heard stories about pedestrians being struck by vehicles. Often, they come right out of their shoes. The friction, perhaps. Maybe the shoes get completely destroyed - they come apart. Not sure. I really hope that isn't it. I mean right in the middle of a freeway and whatever. That's not a good place for people without their favorite car. Honestly, I don't think that is the answer. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it is only one shoe. Perhaps because the shoe looks to be in good condition. That if it had a sign with large letters indicating the shoe's size and which foot it was made for, maybe someone would pull over and give it a good home.

Perhaps this is a consequence of shoes being made lighter. No need to stomp around with heavy shoes in the age that brought us cell phones so small that you have to key in the desired number with a pen. Maybe shoes have become much lighter than I am aware of. So light these shoes may be, in fact, that you really need to consider closing your windows as you drive at high speed. The difference in pressure between the wind rushing by your open windows and inside the cab might make it possible for your shoes to float. I'm trying to imagine the path of such a shoe that has come out of the cab of a car and is now being tossed about by air currents moving around the car. Will the following car not get a big shoe print right in the middle of its windshield? It seems almost inevitable, but I haven't seen that sort of evidence either.

It seems ridiculous, but perhaps where the shoe owner is going, they won't be needing shoes any more. They toss the shoes easily from the window as they drive, the resulting sense of freedom this action affords growing with each such deposit. I've looked on the map, and I can't find such a place. Maybe I don't even know what I'm looking for - that place that would make me kick my shoes off, drive wrecklessly into the fastlane and shout "So long!" as I hurl my expensive shoes through the window one at a time. When looking back, perhaps I would say "It just didn't seem worth keeping them on at the time."

Or, perhaps the answer to this puzzle is far more "pedestrian", should you excuse my transportation pun. Maybe something far closer to home. Something rooted in capitalism and waste as a byproduct of expedience. I think I get it now. I know the answer to this riddle. I understand completely. You see, the owner of the shoe was going to "toss it out" anyway, and like me, they have to pay for their trash service.