Mari left her apartment in London for a day's
adventure. It was a beautiful spring day with the sun
shining but the temperature was still cool because of
the heavy rains that had just concluded the night
before. She set out toward the building a few blocks
away where she was going to pick up some information
on renter's insurance she had requested from her
Insurance Agent. Since she was going to be out in the
city she decided to dress nice with a light blue
dress, nylons and black 7cm narrow heeled pumps.
On the way she decided to cut across the city park and
enjoy the grass and the trees and eat her breakfast
she had bought from a vendor outside her apartment
building - a bagel with cream cheese. Mari found a
nice park bench and walked toward it. She noticed the
ground was a little wet and her heels seemed to stick
a little as she walked. Mari ignored this slight
inconvenience and to some extent she sort of enjoyed
it. She was enjoying the nice weather and the trees
that were starting to get their spring leaves and the
birds that were chirping. She also noticed several
children playing in the park and one had even brought
their dog and was playing 'fetch" with it.
Soon she sat on the bench and brought out her bagel
and began to enjoy it. She crossed one leg over the
other and allowed the heel to dangle slightly off her
foot. Mari was not paying much attention to the
surrounding children and their dog and was instead
enjoying the escape from her usual busy days. Being a
clerk at a local department store meant she usually
had one weekday each week off and this was the best
day of ther week to take care of business (like go to
see the Insurance Agent) that could not be done at
night on on the weekends.
After a few minutes, one of the children threw a stick
Mari's way and the dog came running. It was a black
Labrador Retriever. The dog seemed to be confused and
lost the trail of the stick. Instead, he saw the heel
sticking out from her shoe and grabbed it instead and
began to pull. Mari, resisted for a few moments once
she realized what was happening, but eventually, the
dog won and began to run with the prize. Mari began
running across the grassy park in one shoe only in an
attempt to regain ownership of her high heel. After
about a hundred meters, she reached a low spot in the
park where the water had not drained as well and she
sank her remaining shoe into the mud and it came off.
Not wanting to lose the dog, she continued on with no
shoes until finally after another 200 meters, the
owner who had also run over to help, caught the dog.
After some coaxing, the dog dropped the shoe and the
boy put the dog back on its leash, apoligized to Mari
and walked away.
Mari put the retrieved shoe back on and then tried to
retrace her steps to find where the other shoe was
half-way buried in the mud. Since the dog had not run
in a straight line, she could not simply walk toward
the bench - about 300 m away - and find it on the
path. She did find the low spot, sort of a ditch and
after walking along it for a few minutes, she finally
located her discarded shoe. Mari rubbed off the mud
the best she could and replaced the shoe on her foot.
Next, she went back to retrieve the bagel she had
thrown down on the bench in order to throw it away
before continuing her trip to the insurance agent's
office.
She returned to the sidewalk and walked another 2
blocks toward the building where she needed to go. The
street traffic was getting more crowded and she could
not look down to see where she was walking very well,
suddenly, she stepped square into a gap in a manhole
cover with one shoe and the heel was wedged
completely. She struggled for a minute or so as
others passed around on the right and left offering no
help.
Finally, Mari took her trapped foot out of the shoe
and walked up to someone to try to get help. She
asked a young man about her age who realized her
plight and was happy to help. Mari limped back to
where her shoe trap was set and the nice young man
pulled and pulled on the shoe and it did not seem to
want to budge. During their struggle they found out
each other's name and began to chat a bit, the guy's
name was Kent and he was a university student. After
struggling for a few minutes, he looked around at some
of the nearby storefronts and noticed that one was an
Italian restaurant. He suggested they borrow some
cooking oil from the cook and try to make the heel
slippery enough to slip out.
Kent and Mari walked over to the restaurant and
approached the maitre-d with their unusual request.
At first he seemed skeptical, but since it was early
and there were no customers yet, he decided to ask the
cook in the back for a cup-full. He came back out
with a plastic cup full of liquid cooking oil and Mari
limped out with Kent trailing behind.
Kent carefully poured the oil onto the heel at the
point of contact with the grate. They let the oil set
for a minute and then began to wiggle the shoe back
and forth. Eventally, there was a slip and the shoe
came free. Mari slipped the shoe back one her foot
and thanked Kent with an innocent peck on the cheek.
Kent found Mari to be attractive and did not want this
to be the last meeting between the two. He decided to
be bold and ask her if she wanted to meet him to see a
movie later on in the day. Not having any real plans,
Mari decided to meet him later that afternoon at the
theater for a matinee.
Mari continued on her way and into the building to see
the Insurance agent. She caught the elevator and rode
up to the 11th floor, took care of her business and
returned to get on the elevator. The doors opened and
as Mari walked inside she reached to punch the button
for the ground floor, as she did that her left heel
got caught in the gap between the elevator and the
floor. She struggled and tried to pull the shoe out
of the gap with her foot. The other passengers on the
elevator tried to ignore their gawking but the sight
was just to amusing to ignore. No one offered to help
this time either. The doors started to close and Mari
was about to panic. Just as the doors began to close,
she made one last pull with her foot. This
accomplished nothing but to vacate her foot from the
shoe with the heel still in the gap.
Before she could regain her balance, the doors closed
and the elevator began to move down to the ground
floor as it was supposed to. Mari wondered if the
shoe was still outside the elevator door or did it get
swallowed up into the works of the elevator itself.
The elevator seemed to stop at each floor twice on the
way down. At each stop someone either got on or off
the elevator and in some cases both occurred.
Finally, the elevator reached the bottom and another
group of peole boarded the elevator - again it stopped
at each floor for someone to get on and/or off. Close
to 10 minutes must have elapsed as Mari stood
singleshod in the back corner of the elevator. No one
ever made a comment about her shoe-less problem, but
certainly several noticed.
Finally on the return trip up, Mari reached the 11th
floor again and walked out of the elevator. The shoe
was not there. But she saw a man and a woman standing
off to one side in the hallway and they seemed to be
looking at something. The lady was holding her shoe.
Mari was happy to locate her shoe but was embarassed
to approach the two so she listened in on their
conversation. They were wondering how the shoe got
there, if it could belong to someone in their office,
stuff like that. Mari approached the two and asked if
she could have her shoe back. The lady asked what had
happened while returning the shoe. Mari was too
embarrassed to answer and she just took the shoe and
got back on the elevator without a word being said.
Mari was more careful this time, getting onto the
elevator and soon she was downstairs and on her way to
meet a coworker for lunch at a cafe by the Thames
River. This was a nice place with a boardwalk style
-walkway onto a boat-like structure built onto the
riverbank. She had a good lunch with her friend. They
discussed stuff from work and also about meeting
Kent and their plans to attend a movie later. She
went into few details about her shoe being stuck in
the grate and she completely ignored the other stuck
shoe incidents of the day, thus far. Then it was time
for Mari to return home to her apartment and for her
co-worker to go back to work. On the way out of the
restaurant, while on the boardwalk, she caught one of
her heels in between two boards. It was wedged pretty
well but without having
to ask for help, she was able to pull up with her foot
and free the heel this time. However, when she did,
her heel came out of the back shoe and the momentum
flung the shoe forward and off to the side. She was
horrified to see her pump fall over the edge of the
boardwalk.
Mari hobbled over to see the result and was pleased to
see that the shoe landed harmlessly on the riverbank,
however just out of arm's reach. If only there was
something she could use to reach the shoe? This
restaurant had some decorations along the railing of
the boardwalk and one of them was a fisherman's net.
Mari's friend pointed this out and suggested they
"borrow" it. Soon, Mari was standing lopsided with
one shoe pulling on a fisherman's net handle until it
popped off the railing of the boardwalk. She then
bent over the edge of the boardwalk and netted her
errant shoe. Of course, lunch patrons coming to and
going from the restaurant were amused at this, but no
one dared to make a comment. Mari replaced the shoe
on her foot and returned to her apartment while her
co-worker returned to the store to get back to work.
Once back and safe in ger apartment, Mari inspected
her shoes that had been through a lot that day. She
cleaned the slimy cooking oil from one pump and the
mud form the other one and touched up some scuff
marks and scratches on both heels. She really liked
the way these shoes felt and looked so she decided to
wear them again in a few hours when she left to meet
new friend Kent for a matinee at the movie theater.
Mari and Kent agreed on a movie to watch then they got
their tickets and entered the theater. They quietly
chatted a bit during the previews but when the movie
started they quit talking and focused on watching the
movie. Mari slouched down in her seat to get
comfortable and put her legs up on the seat in front -
no one was sitting there. She had one of her ankles
resting in the gap between two of the seats. When the
movie was over, a gentleman sitting on the row in
front and down to the left a seats got up and this
weight shift allowed Mari's ankle to slip down into
the gap between the seats and it got stuck.
The lights came on and Mari tried to get her trapped
ankle free from between the seats. She pulled and
pulled on her own before Kent finally noticed and
asked Mari what was wrong. She was getting frustrated
now and asked him to help her het free. Kent walked
around to the row in front of them, facing Mari, and
grabbed her foot between the ankle where it was stuck
and her shoe. He lifted up and toward himself with a
lot of force and with a final jerk, he freed her foot,
but in the process, he took off her shoe which went
flying forward several rows.
Mari paused to look at her ankle now red and raw from
being stuck. Kent went looking for the flung shoe and
began to look under seats down several rows to no
avail. Mari realized what was wrong and she limped
out of her seat and joined the search. After a few
minutes she found the other shoe resting on between
one of the seat backs and seat bootoms which had
folded itself over the shoe. She replaced the shoe
and they went to a nearby cafe for dinner then both
returned to their homes for the night
