A Bizarre Mystery Solved

A few days after Cliff's shoe mysteriously disappeared from our porch he went to buy a new pair of running shoes for about $50. He also went to his Podiatrist to purchase a new pair of inserts but unfortunately (or actually very fortunately) they had already closed for the day. He was looking forward to using these to train for Hood to Coast, but just two days after he bought them, one (this time the other side) went missing... Our conversation went something like this:

Cliff: I can't believe it!

Me: What?

Cliff: I can't believe it!

Me: What happened?

Cliff: One of my shoes is gone but this time the other one!

Me: (trying really hard not to get angry) Maybe we shouldn't put our shoes out on the porch again.

Cliff: I can't believe it! Do you really think a racoon would do this?

Me: Yeah.

Cliff: Yeah. Maybe we should put our shoes inside now...

Me: Good idea. :)

Cliff: I paid $50 for those TWO DAYS AGO!

Me: (quiet)

Cliff: Would you be willing to go ask our neighbors with dogs if they have seen any extra shoes laying around?

Me: Sure.

I go to the three neighbors that I know of that have dogs and sheepishly ask them if they have seen them while complimenting them on the great care they take of their dogs and how they are never left unattended. One of my neighbors confirms my theory of the raccoon. She said that she can't leave anything out in the pond in her yard because she has seen them stealing stuff and pulling them up over their fence.

Me: It was a raccoon. No one has seen your shoes.

Cliff: Huh! Well, I guess I have to go buy another pair of shoes...

He does and finally gets some inserts. Then he is very good about keeping his shoes in the house. The only problem is that we had guests over a couple of weekends ago and forgot to tell them about our little kleptomaniac animal. It was Uncle Ken this time. He left his shoe outside on the deck and poof! Gone the next morning... I felt awful. He took it well and fortunately had some wedding shoes to go home in.

Fast forward to tonight.

When I came home from my softball game, the kids all ran out to tell me something. They were so excited to announce that all of our lost shoes had been found! I could not believe it!

Cliff said that the neighbor who I had spoken with and had things stolen from her pond went to a garage sale this week around the block behind our house and a little ways down. She noticed that the lady there had a box of mismatched shoes and asked about them. The lady said that her cat had been coming home with them for quite some time. So she came back and told Cliff about it. He loaded up the kids in the stroller and found every last shoe that had gone missing. AND one pair of Cambria's flip flops and one single flip flop that we didn't know was missing, AND Mason's missing basketball shoe that went missing last summer!!!! About half of all the shoes in the box were ours. She's going to put up an ad in the neighborhood home owners association to see if she can find the other owners. Cliff was two days away from throwing out the other shoe in the pair. I called Cheryl and it turns out they kept Ken's other shoe too! Amazing. It was a very happy ending.

Here are all the shoes we recovered with our neighbor Sandy's help

This was our conversation tonight:

Me: You can't make this stuff up. Hey do you have any shoes out on the porch Cliff?

Cliff: Yeah. But now if one goes missing, I can just go over to that lady's house and get it.

Me: Hmmm. I guess you're right.

Cliff: How 'bout that. I never would have guessed it was a cat.

Here's the crazy little critter... Looks guilty huh?!

Mystery solved. I tell you there is never a dull moment around here. Now if I could just get a picture of the cat hauling a shoe... That would be awesome!