I stepped into the first pair of slippers I found outside the door tonight and made my way down the steps to see what the bitches downstairs were about. End of the workday conversation and smiles about having chalked up another award-winning day of hard work and good vibes… for the most part. It’s been a tough year, and any time we can celebrate the good, the funny, or the just plain weird is a fine time in our world.

And this is how we got to asking, as we sat on the lanai love-seat that remains shrouded in a faded UH towel (cause it’s been raining like the dickens these days), how it is that the generic rubber slipper should be such a gypsy? The pair I was wearing weren’t mine; they didn’t belong to the girls downstairs or “Little Mander” (her feet are way too small for these puppies to even try to fit into her shoes); they weren’t even James’, who, as the only guy in the house, may actually have more pairs of slippers than the rest of us -- go figure, but they were just too girly. So, whose are they?

Well, they’re ours now, but whose were they, back before they came to our house?

They could have come in on any number of folks’ feet on any number of nights or days when slippers were the least of anybody’s worries. Or they could have been left when someone stepped outside and saw a better pair of slippers and just swapped ‘em out. Happens all the time. But, obviously undervalued footwear that they are, they could also just as easily have ended up split up, one slipper here, another there like so many that you see on the side of the road or the freeway or in the park or on the beach. The rubber slipper knows no bounds; it cannot be held when it wants to go, and its voyages cannot be predicted.

I have seen a single slipper lying sole up in the middle of the crosswalk in a busy downtown intersection. While in this case I imagine someone went scampering across just before the light turned red and lost their foot-gear and didn’t go back into traffic to retrieve it, what of the single slipper flopping about in the middle of the passing lane on H1?

While most of us poor mainland transplants grew up with only two possible courses of action when our siblings breathed on us in the back seat or crossed the invisible line onto our side or, god forbid, looked out our window instead of their own (those courses being to complain loudly to the adults in the front seat or to slug away mercilessly if we thought we could get away with it), perhaps the children of the islands have a third recourse open to them: chuck the offending sibling’s slipper out the vehicle. I am eagerly looking forward to the day I actually see this happen.

Of course, there are ever so many more mundane ways a single slipper could go sailing away from the foot where it belongs, but only one other possibility really makes me happy…

I think slippers sometimes just up and walk off.

They get sick and tired of the toes that inhabit them. They believe that there are less calloused heels out there waiting. They feel, deep in their soles (oh, god, I just could not leave that one alone), that better paths are their due. And off they go, erring in a world where a slipper can easily be led astray, and they end up destitute and footless on the side of the road, begging for some spare change just to help them (this is terrible) to get back on their feet.

Or so we concluded that fine rainy evening after only a few drinks. We’re, none of us, even certain that those slippers we see on the freeway are still good. Maybe they got hucked when they blew out or were too bus’ up to go on. But maybe not. A good pair of rubba slippas will walk many miles, my friends, and the loss of a loyal pair is worth lamenting. Now, the pair I had found outside my door was naught to write home about, but they still belonged to somebody. At least they served to pass the evening getting us thinking strange thoughts. We laughed, and now, every time I cross a lonely slipper’s path, I smile just a bit, wondering whether it was child’s spite or just wanderlust that got that little slipper where it is today.