Flip Flops And Garbage Cans.

I did a true "Anne moment" today. One might say all of my moments are "Anne moments" and I suppose they might have a valid point, but it's normally the bizarre events that are classified under a true "Anne moment!"

But first, do y'all remember in Anne of Green Gables when Anne was so frustrated with Dolly (her cow) that after Anne chased Dolly out of her neighbor's cabbage patch she sold Dolly "on the spot" for $20? Later she discovered that she hadn't sold her cow, but her neighbor's cow and she wailed to Marilla, "Now what am I going to do?"

That, ahem, was my true "Anne moment." You see, on Saturday Carolyn and I cleaned the whole house and I do mean the whole house, right down to the dirty, icky, yucky half-closet under the stairs filled with rat droppings. Yes, it was disgusting! After pulling out all of the boxes and such, I found a pair of No Boundaries black flip flops in a box that looked strangely familiar. After looking at them for sometime, it dawned on me that I had brought the flip flops with me last summer! Excited over my "find" and always on the lookout for a bargain, I started wearing them (and just to clarify, no rat droppings were near them!).

My excitement was soon dampened as I remembered why I stopped wearing them last year. I'm sorry to say, but my Wal-Mart special NBs were nothing but painful as they dug into my feet. So with that little reminder, I decided to throw them away so I wouldn't come back in like 6 months and squeal over my "find" and go through the whole process again (and this is just a little tip for y'all: you can probably give me the same gift within a year and I'll be really excited over it!).

I never got around to throwing them away Saturday and the following days just flew by. In the meantime, a group of 5 girls joined us, and I must say the shoe pile was pretty phenomenal! As we got adjusted to having suitcases in our downstairs, I decided to quick straighten up the area this morning, and that includes putting shoes two by two (remember my OCD???) As I did that little task, I noticed I had a pair of flops in the pile and so I grabbed them to take upstairs. I also noticed the black flops and decided now was just as good of a time as any to dump them.

Satisfied that the horrid flip flops were in the trash, I walked away to the office knowing that they wouldn't *really* go to waste since the pre-trash lady would come through and pick out anything they consider "useful" before the trash man came along.

I came home for lunch and was contently sitting eating when my gaze began to take in the room. I'm pretty methodical and like things organized, even if chaos is going on. Organized chaos is much better than just normal, every day chaos:). As I noted the suitcases, the shoes, and the clean living room, my eyes fell upon the floor beneath the dish cabinet. Sitting there staring me back in the face were the Wal-Mart No Boundaries black flip flops!

Pookie was upstairs at the time and all she heard was me laugh and say, "oh no! OH NO!!!" I dashed out to the garbage can and my suspicions were confirmed: the can was empty, meaning the ever-faithful trash lady came along and snagged herself a deal.

Knowing full well I didn't toss my flops into the trash can, I came back inside and had that moment that hit Anne Shirley hit me. "What am I going to do?" Pookie, who was confused at first, just laughed but I knew that those 5 girls were coming back tomorrow and one of them would be missing some black flip flops!!!

I just stood there wringing my hands, because we all know *that's* what you do in an emergency situation like this! I started thinking of ways to explain that I purposely threw away someone else's shoes: "Hi girls! Glad you're back! Sooo, one of you is missing a pair of shoes, thanks to me." That didn't sound very sincere, and I was debating how to avoid seeing the girls for the next two weeks when suddenly inspiration hit me.

I went back to the trash can and looked though the second one, even though I was sure I threw them in the first one. There, sitting at the very bottom (under two bags of, ahem, trash) were the flops! As I grabbed them out, Pookie started laughing and saying, "the neighbor's laughing at you!"

Hey, at that point, I could care less what was going on behind my back! I placed the black flip flops back on the floor next to the rest of the shoes... and of course we all know that those flops were side by side!

I am happy to report that the Wal-Mart NBs are out of the house. As to whether they're still in the trash can or not, all I can say is I saw the trash lady looking through our cans today:).