Sometimes you have to say goodbye.

I hiked 6 miles in hiking shoes in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains this morning without incident. Back at the trailhead, I changed to town shoes and went about running errands. In the Farmer's Market parking lot, my dear old Birkenstocks met a painted right-turn arrow and turned into a banana peel.

*splat*. Luckily, not ¡Boom!

It's the first storm of the season and rain was collecting in murky puddles, so my pants legs, and my shirt sleeves, and the seat of my pants soaked up tire residue, asphalt dust, and whatever natural particles were swimming there, as I rolled around into position to stand up. 

Now what? I'd come there to buy a turkey hind quarter. Could I proceed in my soggy clothes? I was a mess.

I could and I did and when I got home, I tossed these old friends in the trash bin.

¡Boom!