28.9.08

To Catch a Thief - PART 1

Shoes worth stealing

It’s Saturday afternoon and you are on a rare trip into Oslo city centre. You walk into a shoe shop on Bogstadveien. Your husband opts to head for the sports shop across the road with his son in a stroller. You see a pair of shoes you love – this is a rare occurrence on this side of the North Sea – so you decide to buy them. You buy the shoes despite your daughter’s best efforts to get you to opt for the red shiny pair from the bargain bin. You reason that everyone really needs a clumpy pair of black platforms with wooden heels at this time of year, that all the British celebrities 15 years your junior are wearing them and, at 800 Nok, they are a good compromise; the shoes you really, really want are around 3000 Nok in another shop down the road.
You emerge onto the street, two daughters in tow and walk along further towards the Temple of Zara. Your husband knows you well enough at this stage to have seen the desire for pilgrimage coming, and when he rejoins you on the pavement shows no sign of annoyance at your eagerness to pay homage to your false god. He does though stop short of entering the House of Fashion himself opting to take a walk instead.
You spend an hour at worship during which your younger daughter insists on minding the white plastic bag with your new shoes in them. She allows her sister to place a free magazine she has collected into the bag with the shoes. She manages to hold on to them for most of your time there. But some time, probably while she enthusiastically gets distracted by a beautiful pinafore dress you concede to buy for her, she loses sight of the bag. You notice that she no longer has it after paying the cashier. You look around but can’t find it. You find yourself scanning other people's shopping bags hoping to catch sight of your own. But your new shoes, which you have loved only briefly but fiercely, are gone.
Eventually, you emerge onto the street defeated, your elder daughter in tears saying to anyone who will listen, ‘they were such pretty shoes,’ while you grit your teeth, saying ‘yes and they were 800 Kroner’. It is 5 PM. The shop is closing but you decide to go back inside one more time without the children, who now stay with their father, to see if they have been let somewhere. You cannot accept that your shoes are gone. The staff are resistant but you are insistent. You really don’t believe that someone has taken them but really what other explanation is there?
Back outside, you are a much sadder family walking back to the car than the one that bounced along so enthusiastically full of fashion fervour before. You’re re-evaluating all the outfits you had decided would be perfected by the beautiful shoes. You have the receipt so at least the thief can’t exchange them or get money in lieu. You learned that lesson on a previous occasion. Still, you haven’t got the shoes. Worse things happen, but still. This is infuriating. You never expect to see your shoes again. It seems, however, that all that worshipping may have paid off, that the gods governing fairness and fashion may be on your side, that you may just be one of the luckiest victims of crime in Norway.

TO BE CONTINUED.... Posted by Picasa

5 comments:

Jo said...

Jo those look like s and m shoes? seriously are those fashion? LOL

Unknown said...

Joanne - I'm far too innocent to know what you mean. Seriously, they look much better on me wearing black tights than on my seven-year old model wearing white ankle socks :-) And anyway, you're meant to be begging me to tell you how I managed to get them back!

Mel said...

We want a pic of you in those tights and shoes!

Unknown said...

Mel
It's so wet this week that the poor shoes haven't had an airing - not sure how the wood would react. Besides, I'd look even more ridiculous than they would ordinarily make me look - but I promise that once I wear them, I'll post a pic :)
Jo

The ScrapFan said...

I am going to find a full length pic of me in my black wood heels from a New Years event a few years ago! I just remembered----they are pretty similar.

Hope the rain lets up soon. Its still bloody bucketing down HERE!!