It’s summer today. Actually it became summer day before yesterday, but I was in the office that day. This is important because I don’t wear the same apparel during my off time.

I am not a fussy dresser. My working wardrobe palette consists of black, white, blue, red, green and a little khaki. These don’t represent a wide array of colors because there is a single shade of blue (sapphire), a single shade of green (emerald) and a single shade of red (ruby). Makes mixing and matching pretty much redundant. My working wardrobe style is classic. No frills. No lace. No prints. No stripes. I do have two items with polka dots, one black with white and one white with black.

I’m pretty simple on the shoe front, too. My shoes are black. My boots are black. I wear black shoes.

I’m no more fussy with my casual wardrobe, except I really don’t care much about what I wear. There may be a few more colors since there are t-shirts from shows and sweaters from the discount racks. I have a few pairs of jeans for fall and winter and some cropped pants and shorts for spring and summer. Cowboy boots for cold weather and sandals for warm.

This being my first day off of summer I rummaged around for hot weather wear. I had a coffee date at the farmer’s market and the temp was already in the red zone. I dug to the bottom of the other dresser to find a pair of shorts. I rifled through the back of the other drawer to find a tank. I was happy to skip the socks.

That’s when I realized that there were no longer any old summer shoes. You see, I wore them all out.

It’s a little odd that I have no well-worn shoes to start off the summer. I usually have an old pair of sandals and an older pair of sandals and some type of dilapidated slip on sneaker. Any given beginning of summer, I would have at least one of those at my feet.

Not this year, though. I remembered that the older pair of sandals got pitched last summer because I kept turning my ankle when I wore them. The Big Guy made a good case for my safety. This made the old pair of sandals the older pair. Turns out they were a wreck, too, as I discovered when I cleaned out the closet. I put them in the trash to extinguish any impulse to wear them this year. The sneakers had holes in the toes and no treads left. Also deep-sixed.

There were, however, a new pair of sandals. I bought them at the end of last year. I don’t really like them, to be honest. They aren’t very attractive, and they aren’t out of the box comfortable. I didn’t send them back in time so I was stuck with them. I put them in the back of the closet. There were also some new sneakers, purchased three weeks ago. They are attractive, and, I believe in my heart of hearts, they will be well worn and very comfy later this summer. Today, though, they are a bit stiff and rub on the joint of my big toe.

So, here I am, the beginning of summer with only shoes to break in. No old worn shoes to start my season. Poop.

I grabbed my big straw hat with the black ribbon that trails almost to my shoulder and started the work of transforming the new sandals into old sandals. They will be that way for two years before they become the older sandals. I’ll get a new pair to become the old sandals and then I’ll be back on schedule.