The Search for Greta's Shoes

You can decide who's to blame after you read the whole thing. First, I have bronchitis / borderline pneumonia. So there's that. On Saturday, Andrew bundled the girls up to take them into town to run some errands and give me a chance to rest. There was a bit of confusion about Greta's shoes; before they even left the driveway, Andrew returned to the house to swap her sneakers for her snow boots so she could stomp around in the snow as they walked. All fine.

One of their errands was to the grocery store in town, to pick up a jar of pepperoncinis. Andrew called to tell me there were none available, and these were a key ingredient to the Mississippi Roast already simmering away in the slow cooker--I'd have to drive to the larger grocery store and get them. So much for resting. So I bundled myself up, hacking, and got in the car and drove to the grocery store for the peppers. On my way home, I met Andrew and the girls at the library book sale so I could pick up their bag of books (and the girls, too) while Andrew finished up the errands. We all reconvened at home. Fine. The girls were enraptured with their selection of unreadable Barbie books. The roast was delicious.

Today, in the morning, it was time for Andrew to get the girls ready to go ice skating. We couldn't find Greta's sneakers anywhere. I reminded Andrew that he'd changed her shoes before the errands yesterday. Then he remembered: when he changed her out of her sneakers, he put the sneakers on top of the car. Which I then drove to the grocery store. The shoes were nowhere to be found.

This wouldn't be a huge, huge deal except these were $65 Tsukihoshi sneakers I'd taken both girls to a local shoe store to buy, one of a million tasks squeezed in on a hectic end-of-summer day before school started. I don't buy a ton of shoes for them, and for something like sneakers--worn nearly every day to school, for scooter riding, etc.--I try to buy something quality, and this was a brand I've been buying since they were walking. I even bought them a half-size up to last all fall and summer.

AND THEY WERE LEFT ON TOP OF THE CAR AND WERE NOW GONE.

Later, after ice skating (Lucia had a great lesson, and Greta skated without even holding Andrew's hand during the free skate afterwards), Andrew went for a run / search. He ran my entire route to the grocery store. And, lo and behold, there on a busy main road in front of the high school was one of Greta's sneakers, on a snowbank. And, lo and behold, when he ran home and turned onto our very own street, there was Greta's other sneaker, in front of a house near the end of the block, on a snowbank. We couldn't believe it.

Andrew says I'm to blame, for driving off with shoes on top of the car. But I believe the blame is clearly his, because who leaves shoes on top of the car? And who automatically scans the top of one's car for wayward objects before driving off? Especially if you have, say, borderline pneumonia and aren't entirely with it anyway?

All's well that ends well. A true adventure for Greta's shoes.

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