My best friend told me that I don’t need to travel far away to be lost or to experience weird things. Odd things follow me wherever I go.

Oh, I guess she is right!

This evening I went to Tempe Market Place thinking of buying a pair of socks for my trip to DC tomorrow. It is only two blocks away from where my apartment is. So I obviously didn’t get lost.

I parked my car near Ross Dress for Less and thus paid a visit to that shop, followed by a shop next door, Michaels, then Old Navy and Dress Barn. I decided to get something from Target thus moved my car there and decided visited Shoe Pavilion before I went home.

I didn’t need more shoes, really. I have many shoes and boots. But well, I was tempted to give some new boots a try. The first pair of boots that attracted me were high heeled brown leather ones, below knee high. I put on the right one. Zipppppp, I zipped up the boot. Alas, the head of zipper was already cracked and thus it was broken as I pulled it up! I tried to pull the zip down. It didn’t work. I moved the head down and up, again and again. Five minutes were gone and nothing happened…. I started to sweat.

“Calm down, calm down,”I said to myself. I took off my jacket and sat down on the floor trying harder to pull the boot off. Another five minutes and my foot was still stuck.

“Oh my goodness!!” I sighed. I was frustrated. I was just laying on the floor and cursed myself. “Stupid me, why did I pay attention at the broken zipper?” “Why did I try the boot at the first place?” “Why did I go shopping a night before my trip to East Coast anyway?” “How if the boot never came off?” Ooooh…… minute by minute passed and nothing really happened to the boot.

I walked to the bench 5 meter from me and tried to pull down the zipper again. This time I did it while sitting down. I thought I had more power. Still, no progress. I finally gave up. I was already sweating like a pig! I then waved my hand to the staffs there. Only two staffs, a man and a woman. They were standing near the cashier about 20 meters away from me. They didn’t see me.

A couple minutes later, a male staff walked toward me. I waved to him and screamed, “Excuse me…. excuse me, would you help me please?”. He came to me and asked, “Hello maam, what can I do for you?” “Oh, my foot is stuck inside! The thing on the zipper is broken, I zipped it up but now it cannot go down,”I answered him. He was shocked, “Oh, my gosh…. this is not good!” He then examined the boot and helped me to pull the zip down. He failed. With my agreement, he tried to pull my leg out of the shoe but he found that it was too difficult. “I don’t want to hurt your foot, “he said. After being silent for a while, he said, “I think we should do some damage on this shoe,” and called his colleague, a woman at the cashier.

The woman came to us and after saw what happened she said, “Oooh, poor you, how long have you been stuck there?” “More than twenty minutes, I guess,” I replied. She repeated what the guy (and I) did. She pinched my leg a little to give more room to the boot. Still didn’t work. The problem wasn’t that the boot was too small, but the zipper was stuck.

The staffs felt sorry for me, but obviously they also felt like to laugh! Seeing them having difficulties holding their laugh, I told them “It’s ok to laugh… I know this is kinda sad, but funny at the same time.” Hahahaha….. some laughters were burst! Well, I finally laughed with them… better than not!!

Finally, the female staff had an idea. She asked her colleague to take a big paper clip from the drawer at cashier table. A big metal paper clip…. hooked to a head of the zipper… and voila!!! It worked!!!!!

“Yayyyyy……congratulations!!!” Shoe Pavilion’s staffs congratulated me. “Oooooh…. many many thanks!!!!!” I was relieved! The guy decided to keep the boot away before somebody else get stuck in it! He also checked other shoes with different sizes, apparently all of them were ok.

Before I left the shop, I told the staffs, “Ugh.. I guess the shoes aren’t for me!” (Or perhaps they are…. since they were stuck on me!!)

On my way home, I was wondering…… why the troubled boot was my size? Oh my…. my……