Giving Summer the Boot

Here in Michigan, the seasons of the year are 1) nasty DAMN cold sloppy winter 2) nasty cold sloppy spring 3) 400% humidity summer and 4) road construction. I was lamenting the passing of summer this morning as I experienced a creepy sensation -- you know, kind of like when your hands keep buzzing after you push a lawnmower around for an hour or you have no feeling around a big scar -- I was forced to put actual whole-foot-covering footwear on for the first time in five months.

Given that I own, without exaggeration, probably 40 pairs of sandals, and also that I have very, VERY weird toe-constricting issues (one wonders how I did ballet en pointe for years), I look forward to the ability to feel the wind and rain and dog slobber on my naked podiatric digits from May til whenever-it-gets-really-really-crappy-in-Michigan.

I was disheartened this morning to have to put on BOOTS since 1) it was raining and 2) I would be spending the morning walking around in the dirt (aka mud) at a construction site. I cringed as I pulled up a pair of Dan's socks -- I despise trouser socks for women and all of my boots come up to my knees so I routinely steal Dan's nice Calvin Klein socks to wear under dress pants and leave him having to fend for his black loafers with a pair of grass-stained sweat socks. Sorry honey. Feel free to do the laundry if you want clean socks more frequently.

It took me a few minutes to retrieve a complete pair of matching non-sandals this morning, as one of the only ways for us to keep Molly occupied in the morning while we get ready is to let her empty my shoe closet -- thus most of my shoes live in single pieces with the mate somewhere lost under the bed, behind the toilet or shoved in a trash can. She is also obsessed with emptying my underwear drawer, but we won't go there.

I morosely jammed my feet into one of my 4 pairs of black knee high boots (yes, DAN, they are all different and yes I DO NEED THEM ALL.) and when I started to walk out of the room, my feet were gripped with a horrible claustrophobic feeling akin to walking around in casts. I had to check about 40 times during the day to make sure my boots were indeed on the correct feet -- it felt THAT WEIRD to be wearing actual foot-covering shoes. My beautiful (well, beautiful is a stretch. Tolerable.) polished toes were screaming in constrained agony beneath a vacuum seal of black leather.

It really truly feels ICKY to be wearing boots, and it's equally icky to know that summer is being booted out the door. Sigh. The only way to combat (oh, ouch. combat. boots. ha, ha, de ha ha ha) this malaise is, of course, to go buy some more shoes. Better stock up on sandals for next year - God knows how many more Molly will manage to lose before next season.