Shoeby, Dooby, Do

"Now where did I put that shoe?" is the question that many of the people in Fohren, a small town in western Germany, have been asking themselves over the course of a year. According to Spiegel online, well over 100 shoes have disappeared from front porches all over the picturesque town, usually in the middle of the night.

The mystery appears to have been solved thanks to the detective work of a forestry worker who discovered the culprit: a mother fox who has amassed a collection of footwear that even Imelda Marcos would covet. The thinking is that she gathered them as toys for her brood of youngsters since many of them bear little teeth marks, or she simply has a case of shoe kleptomania!

According to Rudolpf Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt, the local count, "We found 86 pairs of shoes in the den and a further 32 in a nearby quarry where they like to play. That includes 12 or 13 matching pairs of shoes." The good count laid out the rescued shoes at the palace so that the owners can claim them.

So far, the townspeople seem to be content to let their thief remain at large since she has yet to be caught in the act. They are simply advised to take in their shoes at night.

"She's probably got more shoes in the den, we didn't want to venture in any further because she's still living there and we don't want to kill her, especially given that she's got cubs," explained von Kesselstatt.

You know what they say. If the shoe fits......