Winter has most definitely moved into Spokane bringing all the usual accouterments; freezing cold weather (our living room is a comfortable 41 degrees at the moment), holiday drink specials and a mystery we can't seem to solve. The mystery is this: someone has been losing shoes on our doorstep at a rather alarming rate. There have now been several instances where we've stumbled across (or run over) some large, mannish shoe that has appeared out of ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE and taken up residence in our parking space. Other articles of clothing have appeared as well, such as a large, bright blue bikini top but these items are discarded (or lost?) less frequently than the shoes seem to be.
Some important things to note:
-The shoes never come in pairs, meaning someone likely still has the other half of the pair.
-The shoes don't look terribly worn out so we've ruled out the possibility of someone trying to use our driveway as a garbage dump. Especially since the actual dumpster is within a kid's throwing distance of where the shoes are, and we live at the back of a parking lot with no building entrance or exit en route to our doorstep.
-The shoes are unclaimed, despite the fact that we have left them in exactly the same spot we found them in to ensure the original owner is able to easily locate his or her missing shoes.
That said, I'll share the possible scenarios M and I have drawn up--based on evidence--to try and answer the mystery.
Scenario # 1. Someone who lives above us, most likely on the 3rd or 4th floor based on the angle of the projected shoe in relation to the building, recently lost a foot due to a run in with an endangered animal or ferocious small (but adorable) dog and can't bear to look at shoes in pairs because the pain is so great. If a pair of shoes is within reach at that moment, one is picked up and hurled toward the window with force. If the window is closed the shoe bounces back and falls into the giant fish tank below the window. If the window is open the shoe takes a nose dive toward the parking lot, landing close to our front door at the precise moment when we are definitely not paying any attention. Also, once while the boyfriend was using his ex-girlfriend's bikini top as a slingshot for slingshotting rotten eggs into the dumpster, he clumsily sent the entire bikini top out the window, along with the rotten egg.
Scenario # 2. The same someone did not have an accident but does have anger management issues, and is still dating the blue bikini top girlfriend. The blue bikini top was thrown out the window during an argument over mayonnaise. The now bikini topless girlfriend decided to get even instead of getting mad and has been stealthily dumping a single shoe from a pair out the window since then and blaming it on the dog or her boyfriend's sleepwalking problem.
Scenario # 3. Same girlfriend, same boyfriend, probably no dog or even any major issues besides being too lazy to walk outside to get to the dumpster.
Scenario # 4. Elves. Chipmunks. Freakishly mutated mice. Some kind of shoe stealing creature large enough to carry a very large man shoe but small enough to sneak into an apartment building undetected.
Scenario # 5. Zombies. Because zombies don't really need shoes anyway. Bad news if this is the case.
