Summer Saturday

I have a confession to make.

I had a great Saturday this past weekend. And it had nothing to do with Shabbat.

We went to my niece's house in the country to visit with family and it was relaxing and wonderful. KosherCop and his cousin Lucky splashed outside in the kiddie pool and played with a giant sprinkler ball. (The pool toys of choice were a giant soup ladle and a turkey baster - they looked like the main ingredients of a tasty human soup.)

We ate hotdogs and chocolate cake and then the grownups napped in a giant heap in the livingroom.

Just a perfect day. Until it was time to go home...

I have this little shoe ritual I perform throughout the summer that grates on KosherCook's nerves and is more than a little time-consuming for me.

I haven't bought summer shoes in four years - not since a half hour whirlwind trip to Payless that first summer after my son was born. I scooped up an armload of cheap thong sandals and never looked back. Because of this, some of my cheap shoes are in pretty bad shape and there is really only one pair left that I can wear to work.

But more importantly, I can't drive in anything in the flip-flop family. I can still hear my mother's warnings: don't run in flip-flops - you'll break your neck; if you wear them to drive they will clearly fall off your feet and wedge themselves under the brake making stopping impossible. Backless sandals kill.

So every time I get into the car to drive, I take off my sandals of death, and change into an even older pair of sandals I keep in the car, that are truly shabby - but have a strap on the back - the difference between life and death. The key to this system's success is that both pairs of shoes must never be in the same place - both in the car and I'm barefoot; both in the house and I could possibly leave for work in the crappy driving shoes and leave the "good" ones behind. So one pair always stays in the car.

Except on Saturday. We took the other car. No shabby shoes. Instead of getting them, I wore sneakers and upset my finely honed routine. Two pairs went into my niece's house; one pair came back out. At some point I changed. At another point I fell asleep on the floor. I remember opening one eye and seeing my sandals shuffling toward me - attached to the little sweatsocked toes of a grinning Lucky. I gently took them off of him and hid them where he wouldn't be tempted to play with them again.

Apparently it was a really good hiding place. After I had put on my sneakers, drove us home, went out to dinner, made the horrifying discovery that I'd left my "work" shoes behind, and called my niece - neither Lucky or anyone else had found them yet.

So tomorrow when I go to work I can either go barefoot, or wear shoes I'd normally never be caught dead in - because - you know, they have straps on the back.