The sneaker is deeply shrouded in mystery. They are only known as Sneakers in America. In most countries they are called Trainers, and in South Africa they are known as Takkies.

Sneakers are most useful as a footwear item, but they are often found thrown up onto telephone wires by unknown pranksters with unknown motives, and are the most likely misplaced item to be found above the eye line in any suburban setting.

There is also a very mysterious tendency in right-footed sneakers to wash up on the shores of Scotland, and correspondingly for left-footed sneakers to wash up in the Netherlands. This phenomenon is attributed to the application of aqua-dynamic theory to footwear patterning.

Whether it relates in any way to the mystery of the single shoe beside the road is unknown, though some believe that these are in fact left behind by time-trial cyclists who choose to ride on rather than stop to put back on a shoe that has fallen off.