Originally published by The Clifton Courier August 25, 2021

I recently lost a thong. 

That’s not to say I lost it in that I misplaced it. I know exactly where it is. It’s in the front passenger side of my car.

When I say I lost it, I mean, it’s gone in the proverbial sense. Its time has passed… as it no longer can be useful to me in the context of footwear, for the strap that went between my toes was ripped out of the sole and is beyond repair. 

It’s always a humbling experience, when a thong breaks. This was especially the case with me, because I was foolishly wearing it in the sand. I knew that was a recipe for discomfort, if not disaster, yet I did it anyway because my hands were full of fish, chips and ginger beer and I didn’t want to have to bend over, place my greasy bounty on the ground, remove said casual footwear, and figure out a way to carry everything. I thought I’d just plough through – it was only a short distance, I could make it work. 

But apparently I have quite a stompy gait, so when I planted my feet with each step, they sunk into the sand. Too much sand got between my foot and the sole, so when I yanked my foot up to take another step, the weight of the sand held the sole under and the power of my extremely strong, forceful stride ripped the strap from the sole. 

Who did I think I was, walking through sand with thongs on?! It was my own stupid fault. 

I was left with one fully-thonged foot and a flappy slap of rubber limply clinging to my ankle, dragging along the sand.  I looked ridiculous. And, when I had to go back to my parked car, I had to carry my thongs in my hand, completing my walk of shame for the whole world to see. 

I chucked the thongs in the passenger’s side and drove off.

And the thongs are still there. 

Because I can’t bring myself to throw them out. Not because they were a particularly sentimental pair of shoes. It’s not like they were that expensive. And replacing them would be an irritating trip into a surf/ski/skate shop, but there are plenty of other thongs in the sea. 

But it seems a bit rough to completely discard this pair when only one of the thongs is broken. The other one is completely fine. 

It’s not faulty. It didn’t do anything wrong. It didn’t ask for this. It just wanted to keep on going being a wearable pair of thongs and then everything blew up and now it’s all over. 

It seems unfair that, just because the other thong broke, its partner is destined for the bin before its time.

But I don’t think I’d be able to pair the existing left-foot and left-high-and-dry thong with a brand new one.

Because I could find a right thong easily enough, but it wouldn’t be the right thong. The left has seen wear and tear. It has been through things. It’s been worn to a point that it moulds slightly my foot. It’s got a lifetime of experience that, paired with a brand new thong, just wouldn’t feel right.

Ideally, this would be the kind of situation crowd sourcing and technology could assist with. There must be thousands of other people who have been through the same thing. Maybe they have a perfectly good thong just sitting in the bottom of their wardrobe, yearning to be worn again. 

If there was some kind of app that paired them with someone with the same foot size, the same style of thong and roughly the same wear and tear, two lost soles could come together to form a new partnership. 

I mean, the technology is there and the whole let’s-not-mess-up-the-planet-any-more-by-throwing-things-away-that-can-be-reused vibe is getting stronger lately, so surely it should be a thing. And, let’s not underestimate the power this could have in bringing people together; the friendships that could come out of having a left thong and a right thong! Call it fate, call it a powerful algorithm, but it could change things. Imagine two people putting their two surviving thongs together like Lindsay Lohan’s character and Lindsay Lohan’s other character in The Parent Trap putting together a the two ripped halves of their emotionally-immature, divorced parents’ wedding photo. It would be a beautiful moment. 

This really seems like a win-win-win situation. 

I guess the only problem would be negotiating the joint custody arrangement.