The Missing Size 10 Basketball Shoe

Day #28

I didn’t want McDaniel to feel left out with all these Ellie stories.

So I found this doozie in the Chairs From the Curb archives from 4 years ago.

Seriously.

This is just so

ridiculous

and infuriating.

But this is our life.


Once upon a time…

it came to my attention that McDaniel left a basketball shoe in our neighbor's car who we carpool with.

"A" shoe.

As in one.

Why just one?

Good question.

The answer came to me in a mumbled mess of I don't know's and something about a zipper not being completely zipped on a gym bag.

Okay,

somehow a SIZE 10 high top basketball shoe "slipped out" of her unzipped gym bag and was lying in the car of our neighbor who then gave it back to McDaniel on a day she didn't have basketball practice right after school.

So McDaniel didn't have her gym bag with her.

On that day after school, she and her friends were being picked up by a friend's dad and taken to the mall to shop for a gift for another friend who was moving away.

So this one SIZE 10 basketball shoe was loose in her friend's van.

It was too big to put into her
already stuffed backpack.

When McDaniel was dropped off in our driveway and she went to retrieve the loose SIZE 10 basketball shoe,

it wasn't there.

Anywhere.

They looked all over the van.

No shoe.

It must've fallen out in the mall parking lot and somehow been overlooked by all her friends getting out and then back into the van.

The petite, 
nearly invisible, 
presence of a 
SIZE 10 
high top basketball shoe.

Are you kidding me?!

I trip over these shoes all the time 

like they are a log in my path.

If these were her practice shoes it would be no big deal.

But these are her GAME shoes.

The ones we had to order from the special web site so they'd all match and get that discount where the extra money would go back to support the girl's basketball program.

And they weren't cheap.

So at dinner we decided that Monte would go to the mall parking lot to look for the shoe since he didn't want me to roam through the dark parking lot at night,

asking if anyone had seen just one SIZE 10 basketball shoe.

Like I was a character in some weird 

"sporty version" of Cinderella.

Monte ran into McDaniel's friend's Mom at the lost and found desk in the mall.

She was not happy with her husband.

The one driving the van that somehow managed 

to spit out a SIZE 10 basketball shoe unnoticed.

They looked everywhere.

In between cars.

Underneath cars.

In trash cans.

No size 10 basketball shoe.

And no mall security asking them why they 

looked like they were casing the parking lot.

Monte left our number with the lost and found desk.

We are pretty confident that no one would steal one size 10 basketball shoe.

Would they?!

We told McDaniel that she would have to pay for the new shoes and take care of talking with the coach to get the special web site ordering form once again.

She said that she'd just order ONE shoe.

Because apparently THAT is a thing that you can do.

When you are 14.

McDaniel doesn't have the money.

She blew her Christmas money on Sunday at one store.

All at one time.

Because apparently THAT is a thing that you can do.

When you are 14.

So the current owner of just one SIZE 10 basketball shoe is going to be getting a nice long list of chores to do around the house. 

And I don't care if that makes me the evil Step-mother in this Cinderella story.

NOTE:  We ended up borrowing a pair of game shoes from a teammate's older sister.