When we reached the front entrance, I dropped my Keens and slid my foot into the right shoe. Something felt funny. I looked down at the shoes and realized that they were not mine. At the same time that this light bulb was going off in my head, Mr. Bun Kao was looking at me and pointing to the Keens on his feet. He was wearing my shoes. WTF?!
G- I don't know, but Mr. Bun Kao is wearing my shoes and I have the wrong shoes. They look exactly like my shoes except that the plastic clasp is yellow instead of black, and the rubber on the toe is larger than mine.
P- How did that happen?
G- I have no idea!!
Bun Kao – Man leaving this morning cannot find his shoes. He see your shoes and say they just like his. He think someone steal his shoes but I say I think just confused, so I wear your shoes until someone come to look for them.
Bun Kao gives me my shoes and I hand him the guy's shoes.
G- Is this poor guy still here?
Bun Kao – No, he leave.
G- Do you know where he went? OMG! I feel terrible about this.
Bun Kao – It ok. He have other shoes.
G- Really, it's not ok. Most travelers have very limited things and our Keens are extremely important to us. OMG!
Bun Kao – It ok. Don't worry. He give me email address. I email to him tell him I have his shoes.
G- Ok, please email him immediately and if he's still in Siem Reap, I'll bring them to him. If he has left Siem Reap, find out where he went and I'll take them to him. I feel so bad about this.
Bun Kao – It ok. Don't worry. (He rubbed my back.)
G- Really, it's not ok. :(
As Phyl and I walked away, I racked my brain trying to figure out how I had picked up this man's shoes instead of mine.
G- I just can't understand it! I stood on the steps, like we always do, slipped my feet out of my shoes, bent over and picked them up. Ugh! I feel so bad about taking that man's shoes.
G- Oh, I'm gonna beat myself up about this for a long time. Do you know how upset we'd be if someone took our shoes? They are the only shoes we have! Most travelers only have 1, maybe 2 pairs of shoes! I hope the poor bastard whose shoes I took doesn't have to wear flip flops for the remainder of his trip.
P- Bun Kao said that the guy told him he had another pair of shoes.
G- Maybe he just meant his flip flops. What will drive me crazy is how did I pick up his shoes? The only thing I can think is that his were sitting right next to the spot where I slipped out of my shoes and when I bent over, I picked his up instead of mine. They do look exactly the same except for the yellow clip on his.
P- And it was dark when you picked them up, so that is what must have happened.
G- Still, I can't believe I never noticed. We're worry about some asshole stealing our shoes and I'm the asshole who stole someone's shoes.
P- You didn't steal them. You borrowed them for the night.
G- Not funny!!
It still haunts me because I cannot figure out how I did it, and because the next day I learned that the guy never got his shoes back because he had already moved on to another city. I got his email address from Bun Kao, who never seemed to have the extreme level of concern that I thought necessary, and emailed him myself. Unfortunately, he, an American from the northeast, had already moved on to Vietnam and I was to be in Cambodia for several more weeks. The guy didn't seem as freaked out as I would have been and told me just to take them back to the states with me and mail them to him, which, of course, I will do, but now I'm carrying an extra pair of shoes in my already full to capacity backpack.
And, I will never be able to determine how I picked up that man's shoes. I am usually much more careful than that!!! I'm sure it'll haunt me for the rest of my life. Phyl says she just thanks Gawd that I did it and not her.
