Last Sunday afternoon Owen had several friends over. The played with Lego, they closed themselves in the media room with a game, they rode bikes, etc. They are all great guys and whenever they come in they always take their shoes off and leave them by the front door. Eventually everyone trundled home and we ate dinner, had the bunk bed accident and eventually went to sleep.

The next morning Leo went to put his shoes on for school and yelled angrily, "Some stupid friend of Owen's must have taken my shoes…THESE aren't mine!" This was hugely chaotic as he hates all his other shoes.

I know.

I do love that boy.

Mind you, he turns 13 in a matter of days….

So there was yelling and grumbling and angsting and eventually he trotted off to school grumpily wearing shoes he didn't like. I commiserated….I myself remember having that happen to me…somebody wearing my shoes home by mistake. I must admit there was wine and a beach involved that night however.

I sent an email to the parents of the friends and said….did anyone happen to come home with the wrong shoes? My friend Mary reported her son had come home with his own shoes. I thought the shoes would have been too big for the other kid but you never know. I didn't hear back from his parents and Leo kept grumbling every day so Ernie stopped by their house with the shoes. They weren't home so he left them there with a note. My friend Walter emailed me back and said, in a very kind way, 'you guys are nuts.' I thought good LORD…whose shoes ARE they and sent Ernie back to pick them up. We started wondering if another friend had come by…Ernie called Jair even though I thought his feet were bigger than Leo's. Still no luck.

Leo continued to grumble and Ernie sighed, picked up the shoes and said, "Leo, are you SURE these aren't your shoes?" And lo and behold Leo looked at them and Ernie said you could see the realization slowly flickering over his face before he said, "I guess those ARE my shoes. The black paint wore off the metal parts and they looked different."

I kid you not.