Sufferin' Sandals

I can be a little hard headed sometimes. 

This is especially true when it comes to letting go of things. I am a fanatic about leftover food, for instance. I hardly let anything that's in the refrigerator make it to the garbage can. I eat it all.

This philosophy has led to some questionable decisions. One time, I left an iced coffee with cream on the back door stoop while I was doing yard work on a blazing summer day. Hours later, my throat parched, I came back to it and gulped it down without a second thought. A neighbor practically went into convulsions as she watched me, no doubt thinking how nearly curdled milk would react with my gut.

No problemo.

Then there was another time when I left the remains of a chicken curry dinner in the back foyer overnight. I didn't notice it until the next day as I was rooting around the house around lunchtime. I opened the container, sniffed it, pronounced it non-toxic, and began to dig in. That's when my wife walked in.

"Did you leave that out all night last night?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said as I was about to shovel in the first bite.

"It's got chicken in there, right?"

"Yeah," I said.

"You can get salmonella from chicken gone bad."

I took a last, forlorn look at the curry dish, and with all the moral strength I could muster, tossed it into the garbage. I think I actually winced as I did this. People have shown less emotion at funerals than I did to that trashed meal.

Those tales are a long way of me getting to the main story here, which has to do with parting with my first pair of sandals – a real tearjerker of a goodbye. I used to abhor sandals; vowed I'd never wear them. I was a tennis shoes kind of guy,  a dude who dressed athletic and that included the shoes, too, thank you very much. Sandals were for biblical figures and pansies. I'll be dead before I exposed my toes to humanity.

Three summers ago,  the Lutheran church we had begun to attend held its first summer service, which are on Saturday evenings. I dressed as I usually did – long-sleeve, buttoned-down shirt, khakis and loafers. Maybe even wore a tie. Can't remember. In any event, I was relatively sharply dressed. We arrive for service and lo and behold, our pastor comes out in shorts and sandals. I just gawked at him. 

I realized, if my pastor, whom I admire so much, think it's alright, maybe even cool, to wear sandals, perhaps I should reconsider? 

That week, I bought my first pair of sandals. Nothing special, mind you. I aim for utility and comfort when it comes to footwear. So, these were simple, brown sandals, with a velcro flap in the front and a velcro flap in the back. And, boy, were they comfortable! Once summer came, you couldn't get me out of them. I wore them everywhere. I loved how my feet were cool, how they breathed, and how I could swim with them on in the bay, listen to them scrunch as I walked home and within hours they'd be dry again. 

They were super. So super, in fact, that I couldn't bear to get rid of them.

But shoes, unlike diamonds I guess, are not forever. And, despite the fact that I had nearly worn through my sandals and was pretty touching pavement when I walked, I needed a nudge to tell me it was time to let go.

So, my wife got evidence. That's the picture you see at the beginning of this post.

That picture needn't tell a thousand words. It told me: Time to get some new sandals.

So, last week, I did. The new pair doesn't feel as comfortable as the first pair (before they got worn down), and we're still getting used to each other. But we trudged home today in a downpour, and they squished as I walked.

I smiled.  This pair may last after all.