the lost shoes

Here’s a story I didn’t have time to post before I left because it happened in the few hours before I boarded the train. If you haven’t been to/lived in China before, you need a few pieces of cultural information to help understand how the following story could take place. First, you never wear your shoes inside someone’s house. You take them off at the door and put on a pair of tuo xie (slippers) that are worn inside the house.

One of my American friends has a dog (see picture of Jaxon). I had been watching the dog while she was out of the city. She had made plans for a Chinese man (we’ll call him R) to watch the dog when I left for vacation. The dog would stay at another American family’s house and R would come check on it and walk it and such. I had the simple task of dropping the dog off at the house that’s probably only about a mile (maybe less) from mine.

I got off work at 3:00. I needed to deliver the dog, take a shower, prepare a meal for four, and throw the last few things in my suitcases all before 6:00. In three hours that’s possible, but here’s what happened.

It has been snowing off and on all week. The weather was warmer, turning the snow into a sludgy, melting, disgusting mess. Normally, it’s no problem to take the dog in a taxi, but today even the 300 meters or so from my gate to the road made the dog really, really dirty. All the taxis I tried to hail just kept pointing at the dog and shaking their head. I soon realized no taxi was going to let the muddy dog get in. Because I’ve already walked a little way, it’s too late to go back and get my bike. And, I’m not sure that the bike will help all that much because I’m not sure that he would be willing to sit in the basket. So, I ended up having to walk all the way to house. Set back number one.

Remember how I mentioned the messy roads? By the time we get to the house, Jaxon was one dirty dog. I didn’t feel good about leaving the dirty dog for R to have to deal with and I couldn’t let it run around the house until he was clean so now R and I have to give the dog a bath. Now I’m getting nervous about my time constraints.

We successfully cleaned the dog and now I’m ready to go. When I arrived, I had come in the door, taken off my shoes in the doorway, and gone straight to the bathroom to wash the dog. I get ready to leave and my shoes aren’t by the door. I know I didn’t wear them into the bathroom, but I decide to look there anyway. Not there. I haven’t gone in any other room of the house. The only people in the house are R and me…and then there’s Jaxon. I ask R if he sees my shoes. He says no, but that he remembers me taking them off when I came in. This is weird. My only thought is that when I was giving R instructions about the food and so forth, Jaxon must have carried my shoes somewhere. This seems to be the only explanation. I didn’t see or hear him do it, but they aren’t where I left them and I can’t go back home in my panty-hosed feet. So, R and I now begin looking in every room of the house for my missing shoes. We are looking in rooms we hadn’t even opened the door to before. There’s no way they can be in there. I am thinking this is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m not exaggerating when I say we looked for at least 20 minutes. I’m looking under the tables, in closets, everywhere and my shoes are nowhere. R is asking me about them and helping me look. We finally both realize we have exhausted every option. We’re standing in the middle of the living room with looks of confusion and exasperation when I happen to glance down at his feet…..he is WEARING the shoes we both just spent 20 minutes looking for!!!! I am not kidding. Since the shoes I was wearing didn’t have a back…they’re just black leather slip-on shoes, when he saw them sitting by the door where I took them off and assumed they were tuo xie. So, we spent twenty minutes looking for a pair of shoes that he was wearing. It was too funny for me to be frustrated that it wasted so much of my time. And although we ate a little later than planned, everything got done and we made the train on time after dinner.

I realize some of you may find the most surprising part of this story is that I voluntarily allowed a dog to share my living space for more than a week...I did and we both survived. How about that.