The Lost Shoe

Just so you know, like most of my stories this one doesn't really go anywhere or even teach a valuable life lesson. I just felt like I owed it to Chelsea.

Last week, I had just stepped off the metro at Farragut North when a girl, lets say in her mid 20's, shoved past me and cut me off at the escalator. At first I thought "whoa, bitch", but then I reminded myself that for lent I gave up two things: 1. biting my nails 2. cussing out busted chunky white girls. I'm not religious, but I figure I should jump on the sacrificial bandwagon all the religious people and Ghandi seem to rave about.

If you've never been to Farragut North station, then you wouldn't know that the escalators leading to the outside world are long and resemble a stairway to heaven, only filled mostly with angry people who are late to work and will probably end up going to hell or, at best, purgatory. Myself included.

So this girl, we'll call her Chelsea. Generic chunky white girl name, no? Well as soon as chelsea set foot on the escalator, her right heel fell off while the left one hung loosely from her left mammoth-sized foot. I was perplexed because she stood there, barefoot, on the escalator as her shoe lay next to my feet a few steps down. Naturally, I assumed she would switfly look back and reach for her shoe. I guess Chelsea had other plans. She rode that entire 45 seconds with only one shoe on, looking around as if her fat stocking-lined feet were not resting bare against the metal teeth of some grimey ass escalator. It was like witnessing someone doing the "I was walking at normal pace but then I tripped and almost fell so began lightly jogging so hopefully people won't notice" move, only dumber. She even took her phone out and pretended to start texting someone, and I know what pretending to text looks like because I do it all the time when I'm in awkward situations/see someone ugly staring at me. So I decided since she so gracefully cut me off earlier, that I would hold on to her shoe until we reached the top. As we ascended, I caught her taking a quick glance backward in hopes of spotting her shoe. The milli-second look of panic that took over her face when she couldn't find it automatically made me realize that taking her shoe was quite possibly the best decision I would be making all day.

As the escalator reached its ending point, Chelsea took on a whole new persona. Earlier, she was just another moody girl willing to be rude to strangers for the sake of getting to work 30, maybe 40 seconds earlier. Now, she turned into frantic/nervous Chelsea and, I have to admit, I liked her better this way. As I held her shoe, she twisted her body and head so violently in search of her shoe that her pony tail was practically whipping the asian lady standing behind her in the face. Poor Chelsea had tried so hard not to call attention to herself earlier, that in a matter of seconds the Asian lady and 3 sourrounding businessman began to wonder what could she possibly be so frantically searching for. At the end of the escalator, Chelsea stood on the metal grate as a rush hour of hurried bodies shoved past her. I could see her mouthing to people "my shoe, my shoe! I think it fell!". The site of chelsea standing on one 4 inch heel as people rushed past her carelessly was utterly fantastic. As I reached the top of the stair, I found her delightfully frazzled, holding an expression that could only be interpreted to mean "what the fuck am I going to do with only one heel for the rest of the day?" As I walked past her, I stood next to a concrete pillar to continue watching her.

Things took a turn for the worse when, in a dumbfounded panic, Chelsea started tromping down the crowded escalator head-on into the morning crowd. I began to wonder, "Why didn't she just get on the descending escalator to the right?" and laughed. No, more like cackled evily at this point. Was I taking this too far? Maybe, but this shit was so good it had to be fattening. As she came back up the stairs, I held up her shoe and said "I'm sorry, did you lose this?". She responded with, "My shoe! Awesome!" proceeded to put it on, and quickly waddled away. No need to thank me or anything, Chelsea. If anything I should thank you for giving me something to write aimlessly about.