Where have all the sandals gone?

Many matters have been weighing on my mind recently, including but not limited to finances, both Charming Bungalow-related and other; relationships with family members; the nature and logistics of being a working mother; and how to introduce more variety, and health, to the household dinner menu.

So I'm going to blog about footwear. Specifically, sandals.

Last summer, once the weather started getting warmer, I spent quite some time looking for my sandals. Not of the flip-flop variety; if one loses those, one can buy another pair for $1. Not of the Rugged Outdoor Casual variety, either; my pair of those, which Dragon purchased as a gift for me about six years ago, are easy to find and in good condition to boot. (Er, sorry. No pun intended. Really.) I was looking for my office-appropriate sandals, consisting of, as far as I recall, a pair of flat strappy slip-ons and a pair of low-heeled slip-ons. I didn't find them right away, though, and, as last year was rather eventful, before I knew it, autumn had arrived and I was looking for the office-appropriate boots. (Those, I found.)

Warmer weather has arrived again, though, so I once again decided to look for the sandals. And I looked. And looked. And today, I looked some more. I looked in the basement. I looked in the attic. I even looked in the garage. And I have NO BLOODY IDEA where on earth they are. I can't exactly retrace my steps now, since we moved into Charming Bungalow going on two years ago, but here are my efforts so far.

We moved into Charming Bungalow over Labor Day weekend, 2006; I'd been wearing my sandals a lot (while house-hunting, actually), and decided that the moving efforts would require sneakers. So, figuring it would be getting cooler soon anyway, I packed them away. Where? Don't know. I remember throwing all of our shoes into a cardboard box, as they were shoes and didn't need careful packing treatment, and then transferring the ones we weren't wearing regularly into a plastic storage bin.

And that's where the trail ends. I have found plastic storage bins containing clothes, toys, table linens, holiday decorations, purses, winter hats, and winter boots. One of these bins did contain a pair of sandals that fits Action Hero; I found various items of clothing that I'd forgotten about, so it was sort of like shopping; and I've been meaning to change purses as the current one has a big hole in the lining that swallowed $1.25, two tubes of lip balm, and the flash drive with all of my schoolwork on it before I noticed (all items were easily retrievable, but still), so now I have a fine selection of different purses to choose from. So the search wasn't a total loss. However, St. Anthony (patron saint of lost things, who has assisted me in finding various household items) has not seen fit to reveal the sandals.

Still, I hope to find them one day. They were plain, black, conservative sandals, and those seem to be rather hard to come by these days what with all the patterned, pointy-toed, wedge-heeled, cork-soled deals filling the stores these days. (At least, last summer, when I briefly considered replacing the sandals and couldn't find a darn thing that was similar.) I can't imagine that I would have inadvertently tossed them out with something else, as I'm pretty sure there are two more pairs of sandals that were with them, and that would have made for a pretty heavy bag to inadvertently toss. But I've looked in every available plastic storage bin, and I don't think there's anywhere else to look now.

Perhaps I ought to appeal to St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes.*

*Who probably has as many--more, really--weighty matters to consider as I do, so I ought not trouble him with finding missing shoes. I will continue appealing to St. Anthony.