What an eventful evening at dance!  This was the first week that I tried not standing at the window watching (Ladybug gets extremely distracted by my presence).  To keep myself busy in the waiting room, I decided to clean out and organize my purse.  I was discarding expired coupons when it happened:  I got attacked by the crazy coupon lady-- and I liked it!  Sure, I had to pretend I didn't know how to layer store coupons with manufacturer's coupons, but she worked for the local paper, so she knew the ins and outs of all the inserts that come in the Sunday paper.  I got a great deal on having the Sunday paper delivered (since I had been planning on starting to get it anyway, so why not buy it from the fellow dance mom?), plus a two inch thick stack of coupon inserts from this week!  The coupons she gave me will more than reimburse me for the entire six months I paid for!  That was the good. 
Now for the bad:  Baby Duck couldn't find her street shoes in her cubby when it was time to switch from tap shoes to ballet shoes.  The teacher was kind enough to automatically search everyone else's bag so I didn't have to ask, but unfortunately they were nowhere to be found.  I told the teacher to go ahead and continue with class; we could scour the room after the hour was up.  I was looking around the lobby when one of the other moms asked what they looked like.  I described them and she said she thought she saw one of the dads with that pair of shoes in his hand, but he had gone out to his car.  When he came back, he had no shoes in his hand.  I continued looking around, even asking at the front desk if anyone had turned them in.  The girl at the counter sent me to dig through the lost and found box that I had already looked through.  I went to go look again, trying to passively make the man aware that I was in fact looking for my daughter's shoes, when the woman who had seen him with them started asking him about them.  He seemed to have a difficult time with English, so she had to repeat it several times.  Finally, he went out to his car and came back with them.  I thanked him, playing it off as though he surely must have just thought they belonged to his daughter.  Baby Duck was confused how that guy had them, but happy to have them back.  She had been crying quite a bit since they were some brand new spring/summer canvas flats I had just bought her.  The man's daughter seemed to look as though she had thought she was getting new shoes and now wasn't.
Then it almost got ugly.  The man must have turned on his Rosetta Stone CD when he went out to his car, because suddenly English wasn't giving him any trouble.  He pointed aggressively at Baby Duck's feet, noting the gap at the heel.
"Those are too big for her!" he said aggressively.  Really?  My jaw dropped.  Was this guy actually going to try to steal the shoes again, and this time directly off my daughter's feet?  I took a moment to look at him incredulously.
"Yes, they're new, so they're a bit big.  Girls, get your coats on."  I turned my back, gathered my kids and left.  The mom who busted him was shortly behind me, so at least I was able to thank her in the parking lot and leave before I got myself into trouble.

CL