The other day I was reading in our local paper about our semi-famous (or rather, semi-infamous—semfamous?) Southside Shoe Tree. Because I always enjoy a good debate (and sometimes even a good old-fashioned argument), I followed up on the story online so that I could peruse the comments section. Once there I was not disappointed as people speculated on what could possibly be the purpose behind such an unnatural phenomenon. Some people said that it was a way for drug dealers to advertise. (Although since when do drug dealers need to advertise? Some things, like toilet paper and drugs, seem to come with a ready made customer base). Others said gang activity. (Somehow, I think the other gangs would make fun of a gang that was a fan of “shoe tagging,” but then again when I was in school we used to make fun of people who kept the tags on their ball caps after they bought them, so what do I know?).
And, then, of course, there was the old standby, Obama. (Whether it was Obama himself who was throwing the shoes up into the tree, celebrations by his decadently liberal followers, or despairing acts by those destroyed under his reign of terror was never made clear. In my head, however, I pictured the first scenario)
My personal theory (and one I did not post—that’s right, I’m a lurker) was that the shoe tree is where all of the shoes that are “stolen” out of children’s houses every night end up. Hey, it makes as much sense as those other theories. And besides, how else do you explain all of those stolen shoes? That’s right, I said stolen: every single time I have known of a pair of shoes to go missing from a child’s possession, not once have those shoes ever been “lost.” They have, each and every one, down to the very last flip-flop, been stolen. If you don’t believe me, just ask your children; after all, how many times have you been running late to school, only to have your child tell you: “I can’t find my shoes. Somebody must have taken them, because I left them right here.” See? Damn you, Shoe Tree Thief!
But then I started thinking: what if all of these theories turned out to be true? Could it be? Could there possibly be a tinfoil hat big enough for all of these theories to fit underneath? What if Obama, in order to get jumped into the infamous Shoe Tree Drug-Dealing Gang (slogan: “Our drugs will get you higher than a pair of Converse in a tree!”), snuck around at night stealing children’s shoes? It’s just so crazy it must be true.
If I was the Tea Party, that’s the angle I would work. Because the problem with having an organization filled with old guys (like the they do) is that those groups tend to get smaller and smaller as the years go by—unless, of course, you are constantly bringing in new, younger members. And what better way to recruit young people than to give them a way to get their mothers’ off of their backs?
“Where are your shoes?” suddenly becomes an easy question to answer. “Mom, we’ve been over this before. I told you: Obama took them. Do I need to show you the pie chart again?”
When you think about it, it’s a natural fit: children are born conspiracy theorists. Coming from a world where they have been forced to eat broccoli and memorize multiplication tables (even the twelve times!), the idea of a worldwide plot to make them miserable doesn’t seem too far-fetched to them at all.
Now if the Tea Party could only work something in there about the Tree also eating all of the missing math homework, they’d be golden.