Mystery of the Missing Moccasins

 All I know is the tan suede moccasins were here one day and gone the next. That's really all I can say... 

My husband Bruce adored his worn-in moccasins purchased in Vancouver, Canada on a Forced Family Fun (FFF) trip several years ago. He imagined they were stitched together by an indigenous tribe, later to be sold in that souvenir shop where we also bought a deck of Canadian playing cards.

Those moccasins were so worn-in that the leather shoe laces had broken and the knots my husband made to tie them tight were barely hanging on, so on his birthday, the year prior to their disappearance, I took the beloved soles, along with the baseball catcher's mitt, to a professional baseball glove restringer. 

That was back before Covid and the pandemic kept all six of us confined to our home. Back when FFF meant a rare family movie night and before I lost my marbles to four kids online schooling. Back before perimenopause and parenting four teenage children made me cray-cray. Back before I tore my MCL and ACL skiing and was forced to have reconstructive surgery. Back when we were unmasked outside our house and before the cocktail of drugs to manage the post-surgical pain made me bonkers. 

My late father always claimed 18-year-old Bruce had a geriatric way about his walk when we dated. Shuffling his feet across the floor, it was a wonder how my husband Bruce could run six marathons (including two Boston marathons) at a breakneck pace of 3 hours and 19 minutes without falling on his 40-year-old face. Ironically, he began to run farther and faster with the birth of each of our children, yet still couldn't manage to pick up his feet when he walked!

Truth is, I never minded the slippers until both my mother and aunt visited us separately last summer, sometime before the Delta and Omicron pandemic variants. The sisters, famous for never keeping an opinion to themselves, couldn't refrain from commenting on those slippers slip slapping across the hardwood floor as Bruce scuffed his way through the living room carrying the recycling container.

 "Good God, Kristen, how on earth do you stand it? I'd have thrown those God-damn slippers out by now!" my mother muttered under her breath. I'm not usually one to listen to my mother, but when my favorite aunt commented on how the shh, shhh, shhhh, slip, slap was grating on her last nerve, I poured her another glass of wine, unable to silence Bruce's shuffle, scuff, scuffing.

Bruce wasn't the only one fond of those worn-in moccasin slippers. Our three-year-old Schnoodle Ozzie couldn't help but notice when Bruce slip, slapped by, trying to wrestle with his suede chew toy. 

Sometimes Ozzie would make a break for it out the front door and down the block, which caused quite the scene with Bruce chasing him wearing just one. Other times Ozzie would grab a slipper and hightail it for the doggie door. So worn-in, he could squeeze the moccasin through sideways to bury it in the backyard. 

I know this for a fact, the beloved scuffers were here one day and gone the next, sometime after the white Goldendoodle puppy moved in across the street. They named him Mango, though he looked more like a Winston, and he was as big as Clifford the red dog to my Schnoodles. As he grew, so did his path of destruction. From dog toys in our yard, to holes in my flower bed, his owner grew increasingly tired of losing shoes.

It was about that time that the scratching shuffle sound grew 'pour another glass of red wine to calm the nerves' irritating, sort of like nails on a chalkboard, but 1000 times worse. Like the worn out leather laces, I was barely hanging on. Shuffle, scuff, scuffing, slip, slap, shhh, shhh, I knew when Bruce was coming. I remember my mom threatened to cut holes in them when she cared for me and my family the month after my knee surgery. Perhaps I could superglue Swiffer sweeper pads on the bottom? 

One day, the noise suddenly stopped, the sun came out, and I could hear the birds again. It was liberating. That I can say. 

"Have you seen my slippers?" Bruce was pacing everywhere, on the front lawn, through the house in his visibly quiet socks, and out the back door; he even crawled under the deck. "I can't work without them," he said. Apparently they were his thinking slippers and our livelihood was at stake!

Perplexed, I shook my head without a thing to say. I felt a little tug on my heart string, though I was basically numb. It was September 2021, shortly after we delivered our daughter to college and I had grieved crocodile tears, knowing our lives would never be the same. 

By the end of the week, I was finally at peace. I also started to believe our marriage would survive the pandemic. Bruce, on the other hand, was growing increasingly frustrated.

"Maybe Ozzie and Mango are in canine cahoots?" I offered. It seemed perfectly reasonable that Bruce's suede loafers could've made it out the front door and across the street with the rest of the doggie chew toys. Who really knew?

Apparently working online from home in the basement requires thinking moccasins because Bruce purchased a similar pair at Walmart with rubber soles by the end of the second week. I also learned Bruce is shopping savvy, a secret withheld all 26 years of our marriage, he could now probably manage birthdays and Christmas too! "You are not frickin' wearing those rubber soled slappin' slippers upstairs," I said with a stern look on my face as the elephant walked into the room that day. Slip, slap, that was that! The substitute slippers now rest comfortably at the foot of Bruce's desk, without a peep. 

Today I hear Bruce humming blissfully to Spotify, working online, in the corner of our basement. As for the mystery of the missing moccasins, I can't really say, though I blame the mangy mutts.