It
was a cornucopia of lost and forgotten items. Sweatshirts, pants, jackets, shoes,
water bottles, books, musical instruments and backpacks were mounded and heaped
in the back of the Middle School lunchroom, establishing the entire room as a
Lost & Found area. The items had outgrown their designated cardboard box,
and like a self-multiplying organism, they seemed to expand exponentially,
until things were strewn across the floor in an outrageous chaotic mess. I
had never seen so many homeless things in one place at one time, and I wondered
if many of the kids came to school naked, shoeless and without books……since
obviously their belongings were not with them….
When
I shared my amazement with a staff member, she said that last year they had so
many pieces of unclaimed clothing that they ended up sending them to a village
in Ghana or Uganda….. Holy cow, our Middle School effectively yet unwittingly
provided for an entire village in Africa! Do the parents know their kids are
so philanthropic?
But how
does a kid loose some of this stuff and not attempt to locate it within that
special box? As the container expands to the point of absurdity, I can
understand how retrieval attempts could be overwhelming, but then again, sometimes
you just have to dig in. Didn’t somebody care that they lost their tuba? How
the heck were they going to play in the upcoming school concert without that
thing? And what about the down jacket I saw crumpled up in the middle of a
pile? Wasn’t that kid wondering why he was so cold in just his t-shirt? You’d
think that the frost forming on his arm hairs would flag him that something was
missing. Or maybe he simply traded it for another one from the box…. And the eyeglasses;
there were several pair – but those poor kids probably couldn’t see to find
them.
I
started wondering what the most unique and oddest item was that was ever placed
in Lost & Found….and so I checked with the ‘Oracle’: Google. X-rays,
crutches, dentures, and guns were just a few of the strange things reported,
and apparently, the San Diego Fair once had a walker in their lost and found
for a while. Huh? A walker? How did that person leave the fair? Must have
been the day the evangelist was there performing miracles…..
But
the most puzzling lost item to me is the solo shoe. There are rarely pairs in
the Lost & Found, which is strange enough, but it’s the solitary shoes situated
outside…in open spaces….that I find
bizarre. You see them on the road, in the woods, on the beach, at the lake,
and in some of the most peculiar places you’d believe a solo shoe could be. I’ve
seen outcast sandals, boots, flip-flops and running shoes - and it’s the
unknown and indefinite circumstances belonging to each piece that gives me a
kick. I wonder if that backpacker got out okay with one hiking shoe, and if
that fisherman knows he lost his sole. And I’m always curious when seeing an isolated
shoe on a beach if it actually belonged to someone that was right there once…or
someone in Japan…or someone who was violently pushed overboard the side of an
elaborate cruise ship by her jealous and merciless lover….
I
have to say; it is the mystery associated with solo shoes on the roadside that
fascinates me the absolute most, however. I see them regularly, and each time,
I question how the hell one sad shoe ends up mangled and partnerless on the
edge of a major roadway. Was there a hitchhiker named Cinderella who was so excited and anxious to get a ride that she
lost a shoe when running to the stopped car? Was some guy just carelessly hanging
his leg out the window while driving when a gust of wind came up and stripped
the shoe from his foot? Was someone tired of being a goody-two-shoes? Perhaps there was an argument
underway when one person said to the other, “That’s it! I’ve had enough of you….I’m throwing your shoe out the
window!”
“Go for it Judy. Never liked the left one
anyway…..and I bet I find a spare up here at the next intersection! But just you wait until the shoe is on the
other foot!”
I’d love
to know the stories. If only those
soles could ‘talk the walk’.
0 comments:
Post a Comment