$1,000 worth of shoes (5/4/07)

My little house was built in 1947 as part of a tract development begun in 1942 for GIs coming home from the war and starting families. As it was built to be an affordable starter home 60 years ago -- and it's one of the very few in the neighborhood yet to be renovated and expanded -- the closets are very small. The one in my bedroom is maybe three feet wide inside.

I have a lot of shoes. Make that a lot of black shoes. They're piled up in the closet at least two feet deep. Every morning is an expedition, digging through that pile to find two of the ones I want to wear.

Now that the season has changed, and because I'm sick of spending several minutes each day trying to find two shoes, I decided to take out all my boots and put them upstairs for the summer. A couple of nights ago, I filled up a black garbage bag with boots and put it in the corner, with all intentions of taking them upstairs later. That night, Eudora would not stop chewing on the plastic bag. This worries us because we're pretty sure our darling Ed died of a bowel obstruction; he could not resist eating plastic. So I got up in the middle of the night and set the bag on top of the clothes hamper.

Fast-forward to this morning. We had a crazy drop in temperature: Yesterday's high was 92 and today's was in the low 60s. It's not yet Memorial Day, so I figured I'd rock some DMs with my warmish outfit. "Now where did I put that bag...," I wondered.

It wasn't on top of the clothes hamper, so I figured I must have stashed it in a closet somewhere. After a cursory check of the closets, I asked Steve if he'd taken it upstairs. He said he hadn't, and rechecked all the stashing places downstairs. Thinking he might have forgotten he'd taken it upstairs, he went and checked there.

When he came downstairs and assured me the shoes weren't up there I started to panic. Then I realized Susan (our cleaner) had been here yesterday. The shoes were in a garbage bag. The garbage truck had woken us up at 8.

I shrieked. Steve rushed to get his own shoes on to chase down the garbage truck. All my wonderful shoes were possibly compacted with waste.

Then Steve lifted the lid of the hamper. Susan had apparently stuffed the bag down in it.

I have never felt such relief in my life.

Love and protect your precious shoes.