the three of us—penny, oliver, and myself—took a walk in waryong park monday evening. the sun had already set (no daylight savings time in korea), and the few who were in the park were just using it as a shortcut to get from one block to the next. it was nippy.
we were maybe twenty minutes into the walk (i try to make our evening walks a forty-minute affair) when i realized that penny had lost one of her shoes—one of the hind feet. why didn’t she say anything!? i immediately called the significant other:
“penny lost one of her shoes.”
“uh-oh. you have to find it.”
“it’s dark. and the shoe is black. all i see are leaves.” it is autumn. tons and tons of leaves.
“try.” a lot of help you are! my inner voice shouted.
we backtracked. we went through the area where i was pretty certain she had lost the shoe. several times. here was me, a grown man, walking this one section of the park in the dark with his two puppies. and one of the puppies is missing a shoe. embarrassing!
a set of these shoes is ₩15,000. that’s not cheap. i wanted to go to the pet store right away to replace the lost shoe. because i’m the type of person who shoves leftovers in his mouth when he doesn’t want to pack it in tupperware. if i don’t see the problem, then it doesn’t exist. another phone call:
“i can’t find it!”
“you have to try again tomorrow morning.”
“okay. if i don’t find it tomorrow morning, then i’ll buy another set…stupid dog!”
penny has always been my problem child—er, puppy. she’s independent and willful. like a cat. she also moves like a feline. but the bitch is smart. she did it on purpose! my inner voice concluded.
this morning, i walked the dogs (sans puppy shoes) earlier so that i could squeeze a few minutes before work to retrace the previous night’s steps. on the way home from our brisk walk, i found the black shoe. it was sitting on the road, presumably untouched since the cinderella moment, a block from my house. apparently, penny had lost the shoe a mere three minutes after our departure the night prior. how could i have missed it?
anyway, i’m glad to have found the shoe. it kind of made my day. kind of like, false alarm, you don’t have cancer.
it’s supposed to be chilly tomorrow morning, and i wouldn’t want them to go out barefoot.
