This morning, my husband David woke up and prepared for work as usual. He showered, shaved, ate breakfast, and gathered his things. He unlocked our wooden front door and then unlocked the barred grill that is typical on all doors and windows in Malaysia.  He reached one stocking foot across the threshold and slipped it into his ….”YOU’RE ….F*&#ing….KIDDING  ME!”

In Malaysia, as in much of Asia, it is common practice to remove ones shoes BEFORE entering a home.  Many people have rows of shoes and even shoe racks outside their front door to hold their footwear.  When you think about where the bottom of your shoes are while you are wearing them, and all the germs and filth they collect, this ritual makes a lot of hygienic sense.   And so, one leaves their shoes outside before entering a home.  And upon exiting, the first step one takes is into their shoes.  David expected to slip on his shoes as he does every morning.  To his dismay, someone else had the same idea, and they had it first.

In the middle of the night, by the light of the moon (and the light illuminating our front drive) someone entitled themselves to most of the shoes on our outside shoe rack.  The biggest loss was David’s work shoes. Size 13 well-crafted soft leather slip-ons are not easily come by in the US.  It is much less likely to find shoes of these relatively monstrous proportions in shops catering to Malaysian clientele. My new running shoes now also have new owners.  Fortunately, not all of our shoes were stored outside.  And though not too fashionable for work, David is still the happy owner of a pair of running shoes, Crocks and flip-flops.

Our shoe thief was an individual with distinguished taste.  Our early morning visitor did not claim every shoe on the rack, but rather carefully culled through the collection.  My new running shoes and the children’s Crocks made the cut.  We imagine our shoe thief lingering in front of our shoe rack, holding up each pair in the moonlight and considering their worth.  We imagine our thief, cigarette to the lips, quietly inhaling while admiring the craftsmanship of David’s leathers. We imagine our thief, when the time came to go, carelessly discarding his cigarette butt on our drive.  Arms loaded with shoes, we imagine our thief sneaking off into the night, looking both ways before crossing the street.

 I do wonder what has become of our shoes.  Will their new owners enjoy them as we did?  Will they trustingly remove them before entering a home? Down the street from our house there is a construction site.  Indonesian immigrants work around the clock rebuilding the hillside that slid down and buried people and homes last December.  They are generally men with small statures, small feet and thin legs.  When not wearing rubber work boots, they go barefoot or wear well-worn rubber sandals.  I imagine they have never donned shoes made of leather or even with laces. I imagine what their skinny brown ankles might look like sticking out from my size 10.5 running shoes.  I do not know what I would do if I saw one of them, or anyone else, standing in my shoes. Probably nothing.  I just hope our shoes have found feet that need them.