Shoe Turns 35

The lifespan of the average songbird, if it avoids predation and disease, can be six years; often they only last a couple. A domesticated parrot can live as long as eighty. The characters in SHOE are usually lumped in with birds that don’t look both ways before crossing the street.

A joint statement released by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cal Tech’s research centers announced that the birds in SHOE at thirty-five, “represent the most egregious example of arrested development” that the scientists have ever encountered. Head of research Randall Bowlton stated, “Usually after thirty-five years an organism will show some brain development. SHOE is one for the books.”

In dog years the wildly popular comic strip would be two hundred and forty-five. Interviewed by a journalist who wishes to remain anonymous for career saving reasons, Treetops Tattler editor P. Martin Shoemaker took issue with being measured in dog years. “We’re the birds who make the newspapers the idiot dogs fetch. You tell me who’s farther up the chain?” When asked what chain he was talking about Shoemaker put his cigar out in the interviewer’s Red Bull.

During the research for this article other SHOE characters either didn’t return phone calls, emails and texts, or issued press releases claiming to be out of town. Shoemaker explained, “They do fly south you know and then north, east and west, depending on their level of confusion. They’re birds… they have the bird brains.”

A celebration said to be rivaling the Queen’s Jubilee is slated for September 12. It will be held in Chimbote, Peru.

Everyone who can fly south is invited.