If the shoe fits...

OBB likes his shoes....in his mouth. OBB and I were strolling through Target one morning this week and as he usually does, he started taking off his shoe and putting it in his mouth. Now he doesn't walk yet, so it's not like they're dirty, but I don't want him chewing his nice shoes that his Grandma buys him. So, as I usually do, I took the shoe and put it in one of the cup holders in the top of the stroller like I've done a million times before.

So after looking around Target for a while, we got into line to check out. As we were standing there and I was flipping through People magazine, a lady in the next line over was standing by her cart with a little boy in it. Suddenly, she started walking over to me, and said,

"Ma'am!" (in a strong scandanavian accent) "Your son is missing his shoe! He must have dropped it somewhere in the store!"

And then, in an effort to console the startled look on my face she added, "Don't worry - this has happened to me before too".

"Oh, thank you, but I have it right here in the stroller," I said.

With the sheepish look of a police officer who just arrested an innocent man, she turned back towards her cart, mumbling "well it's happened to me before..."

So I strolled out of Target, thinking it was nice that she cared so much about my son's shoes.

I don't think I had even crossed in front of the store into the parking lot, when a man driving a Volvo station wagon started flagging me down, and unrolled his passenger side window. He strained to lean over to speak to me out the passenger side as he breathlessly said, "Your son - he's missing his shoe! It happened to my daughter once!"

"Oh, thank you, but I have it right here" I said, holding it up for proof.

"oh, ok," he said, his voice filled with dejection.

What is it about people losing their kids shoes? I was shocked that this was the reason two people would stop me in the course of five minutes. In a world where children are abducted and mistreated in public while many choose to look the other way, a missing shoe apparently rises to the level that neccessitates intervention.

And then there is the palpable rejection these people felt when they found out they were mistaken and they hadn't saved the day. It there a need for people to feel like they're heroes?

These are the questions I pondered as I drove out of the Target parking lot, not noticing if any of the children in the parking lot had on both shoes....