Shoes in the Road

There's been a subtle phenomenon that's had me baffled for an entire lifetime and I'm finally ready to address it:  Why are there so many shoes in the road?

Every day of my life, within every commute---short or long---I see shoes in the road.  Not pairs of shoes.  Random single shoes lying around the shoulders of highways and byways, blending in with the roadkill.  They resemble those cartoon men in those cartoon deserts, slowly crawling toward those cartoon mirages that they will never reach.  Where do the shoes come from?

Every now and then I know a pedestrian is hit in a tragic traffic accident and the impact may cause their shoes to fly off.  This happened to my niece once.  Her shoe did fly off, but it was also immediately retrieved.  (And, by the grace of God, her shoe suffered worse injury than her body.) But, every day?  If there were that many car-on-pedestrian accidents occurring, we'd be hearing about it on the news and we'd become very unlikely to leave our houses on foot.

Another cause could be domestic disputes.  There's always that couple you'll drive past who's sparring, waving arms at each other and shaking fists.  Or, the big brother torturing the little brother in the back seat.  I always presumed that at least a small percentage of shoes in the road had to have been thrown there by a disgruntled party.  "Quit touching me!  Quit touching me!  Stay on your side of the line.  I've got your shoe, now are you going to quit touching me?  No?  Whoops..."  And, one more shoe is added to the one-legged road's closet.

There's always the piece of luggage that spills off of the unsecured luggage rack.  But, if road shoes came from luggage, they would also be accompanied by road pants, shirts, socks and undies... which is something we rarely see.  (Although, I did see a lone---very large---bra on the side of the road once.  That must have been one heck of a domestic dispute!)

How many more causes can there be?  Is it those people in the passenger seats who air their foot out the window, by the side view mirror, without tightening their laces first?  Is it joggers who take a spill, sprain their ankle, and end up crawling the rest of the way home before noticing the missing party on their left foot?  Is it those victims running away serial killers who run so fast they run right out of their shoes?

I wrack my brain every journey in the car and have trouble coming up with any answers that make better sense.  I guess the world may never know.  Shoes-in-the road is destined to be an eternal enigma, not unlike those lost socks in the clothes dryer.

If you've ever lost a shoe in the road, leave your story in the comments field below.  As you can probably tell, I'm dying to know how!