Today I awoke, and as I left my room to take a shower I noticed something strange. My shoes were directly outside my bedroom door, side by side and neatly placed. This was no accident. This was also not where I left them when I went to sleep last night. In the midst of the night or morning, somebody had moved my shoes. I was wondering if it was a message to me like “keep your dirty wet fucking shoes out of the entryway, asshole,” but when I looked many other pairs of shoes were in the entryway. On my way back from the kitchen, I saw a pair of Patrick’s shoes sitting outside the doorway to his room, and I realized what was happening. Upon further inspection of my shoes, they contained two treats: a Hot Wheels Toyota AE-86 Corolla (a drifting machine) and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Tree.

In the last week, this is not the first time that I have been presented with food and an amusement in my shoes.

After attending a highly classy Wine and Cheese party on Saturday, when it was finally time for me to go home and pass out (at 6AM), I was instructed to “put my shoes on, now.” This, of course, immediately roused my suspicions and I subsequently inspected my shoes. In one boot there was a bunch of peas that were at one time frozen. In the other was a condom. Best. Party. Ever.

These two shoe related food/amusement incidences were not perpetrated by the same person, nor were they coordinated in any way. Saturday was a wine induced moment of inspiration. Today is the day when, according to some, St. Nick comes to leave treats in the shoes of good little boys and girls. This doesn’t just happen around this time of the year, though, and it doesn’t just happen to me.

People have died in the desert from not checking their boots or shoes for scorpions. This leads me to think that it is in the nature of the universe not for things to tend toward disorder, but for things to tend toward treats in shoes.

The real question is: If people in the desert had put the non-scorpion boot on first, would they still be alive today? The answer to that question would also clear up one other mystery: is the scorpion the food or the amusement?

…Or was St. Nick just out of coal?