Trick-or-Trick

A week or so ago I went out to a wonderful birthday dinner with my pirate girls and we got to talking about kid’s shoes.  I shared that JJ used to switch off between his two pairs of footwear: his rocket shoes and his trail shoes.  It was working out well.  They were wearing evenly and it seemed slightly healthier to give his shoes a chance to breathe for a day or so.  But then something changed and his favorite rocket shoes could no longer be trusted.  We had to completely cut-off contact.  They were the enemy.

So one of my friends, also the mom of two little boys, shares the plausible wisdom that I should only buy one pair of shoes at a time.  Based on experience, it made sense.  I had found the perfect brand of indestructible shoes (Keens), and now I had found the perfect theory to support only shelling-out significant dollars when he complains about his toes hurting or something.  I’m kidding.

And then on Halloween I brought the boys home and we all immediately removed our shoes at the front door, per our training.  I put Nate’s shoes together on the floor and was then distracted by the million costume, candy, carving, and dinner preparations that needed to occur in a restricted time frame.

A bit later I have the lion and the sock monkey ready to hit the streets.  The lion gets his trail shoes and he’s ready to go.  We can only find one sock monkey shoe.  We look everywhere.  It’s getting darker.  Kids are coming to our door.  We gotta get outta here.  I dig up some old Converse, strap ’em on and we get going.

We’ve been searching for the sock monkey shoe for almost five days.  Jake has hypothesized that a Trick-or-Treater entered our home and absconded with one Pediped.  Besides the dangers of water, I began to lose faith in my new “1 Pair at a Time” theory.

Today James texted me this picture.

That’s our mail slot… right next to where the shoe was last seen.  How did I know it was an inside job?