u/Crumpled-Mess

there are hundreds. I’m not sure why. But every year, when I walk my dog along the beach, I see literally dozens of not hundreds of people barefoot. It’s like the Fourth of July holiday (American Independence Day) gives people license to shed their shoes. I assume these are the same people who would wear sandals to the beach on any other day, especially if they’re going to a party at someone’s house, but today they won’t even bring them.

I can’t explain it.

I wore flip flops to go out to lunch. I slipped them off under the table for awhile so I only wore them for less than a half hour, but the streak is still over.

But the good news is, looking at my schedule for July, I don’t see any obvious shoe-wearing events coming up:

— Haircut - never wear shoes to the barber

— Dental cleaning - been to this specific office three times barefoot, why not again?

— Film festival - went to the same one last year, this theatre is so run down I can’t believe they’d have any policy at all

— Concert - this one is iffy, but I’ve been to this club barefoot twice so I should be able to do it, depends on the specific ticket taker

Other events will surely arise, but if I manage to get through July, that would be 75 days straight while only wearing flip flops for less than an hour.

When I was in my 20s I sort of told myself that I’d stop barefooting when I turned 30, because old people have uglier feet and don’t need to be barefoot in public. Obviously I’m still barefooting at age 59, but 60 seems like a them to reconsider whether it’s appropriate. I must admit, I can’t remember the last 60 year old feet I saw, man or woman, that looked “good.” Yet I feel like my feet, by virtue of being shoeless for so many hours and years, look like a much younger man’s feet.

Should I consider giving up the lifestyle when I turn 60, in compliance with the social contract?

So I’m planning a dinner for my 60th birthday in a few months. There’s lot of nice restaurants walkable from my house, but the guests — two couples I’ve known for 30-40 years — have various dietary restrictions and preferences which caused me to rethink my initial choices of restaurant (steakhouse, fish). I ended up proposing an Italian place we can walk to that is right along the beach.

It now occurs to me that without making a big deal out of it, I could do my 60th birthday dinner barefoot. I could carry my sandals on the walk to the restaurant — because everyone now knows I always walk along the beach barefoot — and then when we get seated on the patio, just continue carrying them in like I haven’t gotten around to putting them on yet. Once we get seated, I can just put them under the table. I doubt anyone will even notice except maybe my wife who has an eagle eye for,things like that, but I doubt she would say anything.

Should I go for it? Or is a 60th birthday dinner a time to just suck it up and wear nice sneakers? FYI, the walk is about one mile.

I shared before that about the only place I have a problem shopping barefoot is my local dispensary. They’ve always been pretty strict when it comes to bare feet, including NSNSNS signs both inside and outside the store and a security guard who has enforced the policy against me numerous times.

Well, two visits ago, the woman employee who checks IDs outside the store made some friendly comment about my bare feet. I couldn’t make out what she said — probably something like “hey you’re barefoot” but with a smile — but I responded with an equally friendly comment that I never wear shoes and the weed store was ironically the only place that hassled me about it. She said “yeah, they’re old school” and that was that.

Last visit, I got in barefoot but I assumed it was because the security guard was also assigned to checking IDs (I thought the ID checker might be on break) and didn’t notice.

But today, I got in again. Again, the security guard was checking IDs so again he might not have noticed, but I also saw that the NSNSNS sign outside the place was gone. The one inside was still there, but off in a corner and it might just be they forgot to take it down. And I was in there for awhile and at least a few employees must have seen I was barefoot, but no one seemed to care.

I wonder if that employee I had the nice banter with later talked to her bosses and was like, why do we have this strict policy again? And no one had a good reason, so they have just stopped enforcing it.

Who knows, but I guess I’ll find out over the next few visits. Lesson: I could have just given up and put shoes on once I got rejected a few times, but I kept trying, and now I’ve succeeded two times in a row and witnessed the removal of the most prominent NSNSNS sign.

So I was talking to my therapist — who himself is 30 years sober — about how I was struggling to share at AA meetings in recent months. Our conversation basically went like this:

Me: I find myself having doubts about the program and when it’s my turn to share, I feel like expressing my honest thoughts, but I don’t want to mess with anyone else’s sobriety and I know it isn’t the place for it, so I just end up passing and saying nothing.
Him: you’re a blowhard.
Me: excuse me?
Him: you’re a blowhard.
Me: I’m trying not to be defensive about what you’re saying but I’m not really understanding where you’re coming from.
Him: if I was at a meeting and I heard you share, I would plug my ears. Nobody wants to hear your opinions about the program. That’s not the purpose.

I could go on with the obvious point that I was telling him that I DIDN’T share stuff like that — that was my whole point — but I’ll just leave it there for purposes of this post. After that session I never went back to him, but I’m still confused by it. Is he just a jackass, or do you understand where he is coming from and I am just in denial about being a “blowhard”? Is there actually something I could learn from what he was telling me?

EDIT 1: I think a blowhard is like a know it all loudmouth.

EDIT 2: I actually wasn’t even seeing this therapist for help with drinking. It was for depression and, previously, some family issues. Just clarifying because a lot of responses seem to assume I was seeing him to help me stop drinking.

Yeah I know it’s still June 30, but as I see no realistic impediments to staying barefoot today, I am declaring prematurely that I have accomplished Shoeless June (officially, at midnight tonight), the first time ever I have gone an entire calendar month without any kind of footwear. (I went 42 days in 2020, but I believe that stretched over two calendar months.)

First, I would like to thank the Academy. Second, I wish to dedicate my accomplishment to all those who wish they could be barefoot more, but cannot due to insecurity, work commitments, weather, health reasons, or all the other possible obstacles to this lifestyle.

What have I learned through this challenge, many ask? I learned that our primary barrier is in our mind. If you would have told me that during June, I would go to two concerts — including one at a club 350 miles from home, another at a club with a published dress code that says “footwear required,” and involved meeting friends and new friends of friends who had never seen me barefoot at a nightclub, as well as pitching a business idea to some people I’d never met before — bought a car from a dealership, went to two medical appointments, opened a bank account, stayed at a hotel, and probably other stuff I am forgetting — I would have said, well, a fully barefoot month isn’t in the cards this time, maybe sometime in the future when my social calendar is less full.

But I did it. I had doubts, sure, and there were a few times when I thought I might need to give in and just wear at least flip flops for a few hours. But I persevered. I give credit to this sub — without being able to work out some of my insecurities here, and get positive and supportive feedback, I couldn’t have done it. This is a victory not just for me, but for all of us. Thank you.

Where I live — on the coast of Southern California — must have the most perfect weather for barefooting of anywhere in the world.

The daytime temperature, year round, pretty much ranges from 57-82F (14-28C). Even when it’s in the 90s or 100s inland that rarely hits the coast. I sometimes fail to appreciate that if I lived somewhere else, I’d be limited in my barefooting to just parts of the year. How,about where you live?

Tldr: I went barefoot at a music club keeping my Shoeless June challenge intact.

Last night I faced my biggest challenge during Shoeless June. My friend, a musician, invited me to his show at a small club in San Francisco, 350 miles from my home. It sounded fun — another band on the bill was doing a one-night-only reunion — so I took the plunge. I drove up the coast yesterday, stopping in Pismo Beach for lunch. I did have my first turn-away of the month — I tried to go into this diner, but the host stopped me and said, “I’m sorry, we require shoes.” I politely said “ok” (with a tone of surprise, like I don’t understand why they would have such a rule) and ate at a burger place down the street.

I checked into my hotel barefoot. Not a problem. I went to the club early — like an hour and a half before the doors opened — and didn’t even carry emergency flip flops (though I had some in my car). Wearing a t-shirt, hoodie, and jeans, I watched the bands do their sound checks, and smoked a joint on the back patio where I pet the two friendly but wary house cats. Though the place was empty and my bare feet were obvious, none of the staff of 6-8 people said anything or seemed to care who this barefoot dude petting their cats and watching the rehearsals was. At one point before the doors opened, the staff member who was preparing to man the door asked me, “have you been stamped yet?” I said no, he motioned me over, found my name on the guest list, and stamped my hand. No issue with my bare feet, not even “look out for glass.”

Before the show started, my friend introduced me to a few semi-famous musicians who were either performing or attending the show. None commented on my feet. The show itself was sold out, with 225 or so people eventually packed into this small room.

I’ll be honest, after smoking the joint, which tends to make me paranoid, I was a little self-conscious, but once the place filled up my feet became a lot less conspicuous. The only comment I got was when talking to a couple of drunk guys on the patio. One said, “I like your choice of footwear. I hate shoes.” The other guy agreed. A woman sitting nearby overheard and said, “no shoes?” and chuckled. Both drunk guys seemed to think it was cool. As they left the patio to go inside, one said, “let me know if you need shoes. I’ll be inside.”

The show ended around midnight. I said goodbye to my friend and drove back to my hotel. I’ll be honest, somewhere along the line I got some glass in my foot. I think it was when walking back to my car in the dark. I sort of slightly hobbled from my car to my room, a little worried because if I broke the skin at the club, I would be at significant risk of a plantar’s wart, which is a good reason NOT to barefoot at a club, but I’m insane. Anyway, I used my tried and true technique: I washed that area of my foot with soap and water, sanitized my pocket knife with my lighter, and dug gently but firmly into the area where the glass was, until the tiny invisible shard popped out. There was a minuscule bit of blood, but the very small pinprick of a wound healed up quickly. Let’s hope that’s the end of it.

Overall, despite some temporary misgivings when I was kind of on display during the sound check, I’m glad I did this. I would have been bum,ed if I had chickened out (though it helped that I didn’t bring any shoes with me on the trip, so my only choice was cheap rubber flip flops or barefoot). The next five days ought to be smooth sailing as far as completing my Shoeless June Challenge. I won’t be able to continue the challenge through much of July though, as I considered, because I have lunch plans on July 3 where I’ll need to at least wear flip flops. However, I realized the other day that the last time I wore closed toe shoes was May 17, and since then I only wore flip flops for less than 20 minutes or so at an outdoor family party. So by July 3, that will be 46 full days in a row with just 20 minutes of flip flops. So not technically a new record for me (which was 42 days with no footwear, period, during the pandemic), but arguably more impressive because during the pandemic my forays outside my home were very limited due to government restrictions (it’s still crazy to me to even say that, what a horrible time).

During July I already have plans to go to a Killer Klowns from Outer Space movie screening/concert and a show at another punk club. I will likely be barefoot for both, but at this point there really aren’t any barefoot challenges left for me. I’ll have to think of some. Suggestions welcome.

I don’t know if these are limited to California or not, but they’re super annoying primarily because they make no sense in multiple ways.

First, I have no idea what they want me as the viewer of the ads to do. They want me to “fight back” against the Billboard Lawyers. How exactly? I don’t own a billboard company. Even if I did, am I supposed to stop letting lawyers buy space? Why should I? Which leads to my second issue…

Second, the criticisms of the Billboard Lawyers make no sense, and trust me, I’m no fan of the kind of lawyers who advertise on billboards. But this commercial’s logic is so ridiculous that it puts me on their side. It starts by claiming that the “Consumer Lawyers of America” are “funded by the Billboard Lawyers.” Ok, but who are the Consumer Lawyers of America? Aren’t they themselves the Billboard Lawyers? Why would one lawyer (even a Billboard Lawyer) fund another lawyer (the CLAs)? Why wouldn’t he just take the case (whatever the case is, they never even really say) himself? So from the very start they’re dividing a single group of lawyers into two groups for no apparent reason. It’s like saying the Big Grocery Stores are funded by the Supermarkets of America. So what? Who cares? What does it all mean?

Third, they go on to say things like the Billboard Lawyers are representing victims of major fires (maybe this is only in Southern California). Then they say the fires caused billions in losses and see, to try to pin the blame on the Billboard Lawyers. Did they start the fires? Don’t the fire victims deserve representation? Don’t the lawyers deserve a fee for handling those cases even if they are (gasp!) Billboard Lawyers? What is the f—-ing point? They make a similar bait and switch type argument about sexual abuse survivors. At one point they assert that one lawyer stole money from his clients, as if that somehow tars all the Billboard Lawyers even if they had nothing to do with that incident.

I could go on, but I still have no idea what is wrong with the Billboard Lawyers, why I should be mad at them and what I should do about it even if I am. The only clue seems to be that Uber is funding these ads, so I guess the Billboard Lawyers must be suing Uber, but for starting fires and sexually abusing people? What in the hell is happening?

Who I swear is voiced by an adult woman.

That’s the first annoying thing. The second is the script. He says thinks like “and everything tastes like sunshine or something.” This is such an adult writer trying to write an adorable kid statement but it’s way too consciously cute and no kid would ever say this. Likewise, “and I wasn’t bored, not even once.” So overwritten.

The third annoying thing is the way the adult woman voicing the little boy says her lines. The last line is something like, “mom says we can come back, but I wish we’d never leave.” The way she raises her cadence on “leave” is irritating as f. Again, trying way too hard to be a “cute kid.”

The commercial would be so much better if they let a real kid read his own lines and made them less affected.

To be fair, there’s a companion commercial without a little kid and it’s better.

So as I’m getting into the second half of Shoeless June I’ve noticed something. Like, I was thinking about going to this punk show Saturday night at an outdoor venue but I don’t know their footwear policy. I mean, they probably have one technically but is it enforced? Normally this wouldn’t matter as I’d bring flip flops and if security demanded it I’d put them on. But that would screw up my Shoeless June even if only for two minutes to get past security. So now I, thinking, well I don’t really need to go. Is this just OCD or something because I really shouldn’t let my Shoeless June Challenge get in the way of doing what I want to do. Because what’s the point of it then and am I really meeting the challenge if I carefully curate my activities to satisfy the challenge? Also, if I have to put on flip flops for two minutes have I truly blown the challenge or would there be a grace period or something? Because as of now no footwear has even touched my feet for all of June but maybe two minutes out of necessity wouldn’t count as wearing shoes for purposes of the challenge. I know this is something I just made up for fun so I can do whatever I want but I don’t want to cheat, still. Thoughts?

Ok, so the commercial says that because its customers are so important, Ford will now give every customer the same employee discount its employees get.

But isn’t this really no different than Ford saying “we are eliminating our employee discount program”? Meaning, now our employees will pay the same price as our customers?

I mean, they’re not promising any specific discount. The commercial is just as fairly read as an eff you to Ford’s employees if they were expecting a discount for working there.

An empty promise and poor employee relations. So Annoying.

Day 16. Went to the eye doctor today. It wasn’t much of a challenge because I’ve been there barefoot every year for years. Sometimes the doctor makes a stray comment (“oh, just come from the beach?”) but today no one said anything.

One thing that was different this year. Sometimes, including today, I walk there because it’s only about half a mile from my house. Once I get going on my walk to the office, my heart usually races a little because I know I don’t have any shoes with me so there won’t be any way to “go to my car to get some shoes” if the office insists on it. This time there was no such anxiety. It’s probably because this office has been so chill so many times, but also helps that my confidence continues to increase. It will be tougher when I go to the dentist (around the same location), where I’ve now been three or four times and they haven’t said anything but it’s not clear to me that they really “allow” it as opposed to not noticing. If I walk there, I’ll probably be a bit anxious once it’s clear I have no backup if they have an issue with it. I’ll still do it though, because I can’t imagine they would say anything worse than “next time, please…”

Over the last few days, I’ve also conquered numerous grocery stores, take out restaurants, a doctor’s office for a blood test, around 18,000 steps a day with my dog, and two movie theatres. Other than a tsk-tsk from a manager at Whole Foods, nothing negative. And a dude shopping at a supermarket commented, “I love that you’re barefoot in here. It makes me feel like I’m in Hawaii.”

Anyway, the rest of this month should be smooth sailing except for one big event, a concert I want to go to in San Francisco. I’ll have to drive up, get into the show (probably through the band entrance so no security issues), get a hotel and drive home shoeless. Other than that, a successful Shoeless June seems to be easily within reach. And if I make it, I might try to beat my all time record, 42 days, achieved during the pandemic. This would be much more of an accomplishment because it involves so many more stores and other public places.

I saw this recently and I really had a problem with one aspect of it. As you may know, in the original books Fletch has a habit of going barefoot. But it’s a personality quirk that is intended to show he’s laidback, original, confident, etc.

In I don’t remember how they handled this in the Chevy Chase movies, but in the Jon Hamm reboot, they blew it in several respects.

First, they would have Hamm as Fletch wear shoes around town but then randomly just take them off in the middle of an investigation or interview or whatever. Like in one scene he’s questioning a witness or something and just starts to take off his dress shoes and the woman says something like, “ok, what’s going on? What are we doing here?” That’s not how a real laid back barefooter would behave generally. Once he decides he needs dress shoes for some task he’s not going to just randomly start taking them off in the middle of the event.

Second, in another scene Hamm puts his bare feet up on a desk and he has a pretty noticeable bunion. Habitual,barefooters do not and would not have a bunion. It looks like a guy who has spent his life in cramped, uncomfortable shoes. I get that they probably didn’t screen test Hamm’s feet before they cast him, but if I had been the director, I would have just skipped any close up of his feet as it wasn’t necessary and completely defeated the premise that Fletch was a cool, laidback habitual barefooter who went about his daily life and job mostly barefoot.

I posted the other night about going barefoot to a concert and how I accidentally texted my friend that I wanted to go barefoot to the show (too-long story about how that happened, bottom line is I ended up texting him a total internal thought that I had no intention of revealing), and instead of ridiculing me, or asking what was wrong with me, or saying he would be embarrassed and wouldn’t want to go with me if I did that, he was mildly encouraging. By that I mean he reminded me of the one other show I went to barefoot with him (but it was an outdoor show, so a little different in my mind) and how the “hardcore guys” at that show found it “impressive.”

Anyway, post-show, he and I have already made plans to go to another show. My deep-seated fear that he would be accepting of me going barefoot but would then avoid future plans with me seems to be all in my head. And the coolest part now is that having accidentally basically told him, hey I want to go barefoot to all these shows from now on, and him accepting it and still making plans, means that in the future I don’t need to agonize over whether to wear shoes or not (and almost always this mental struggle leads me to just wear them to avoid any problems). I can just do what I want. It’s incredibly freeing.

The moral of the story? I guess it’s obvious but so much of our apprehensiveness toward this stuff is in our heads. I now think if you asked my friend about it, he’d just say he doesn’t really understand it but mostly doesn’t care what I do and at some level he can appreciate the boldness and cool eccentricity of it. That’s all I ever would have asked for. I don’t need anyone to understand, just accept it as a part of my personality. And it now seems that everyone I care about in my life from my wife, family, friends, are at that point.

So I went into Whole Foods yesterday just to get some carbonated soda. I get to the checkout and apparently the bar code on the soda package won’t work. The young checker calls over an older lady, who was sort of a manager of some sort I guess, to ask her what to do. The manager sent yet another young employee to go check the price of the 12-pack.

Then the manager says to me, sternly, “you’re not wearing no shoes.” (I could go on a tangent about what’s happened to grammar in America, but that’s off topic…) The store does have a NSNSNS sign which I routinely ignore.

As an experienced barefooter, I found myself instinctively adopting a new strategy. I just looked at her with sort of an impish grin and said, “yeah, I snuck in. Don’t tell anyone, ok?”

That seemed to sort of melt her hard heart a little as she kind of smiled back. She said something about broken glass and I said something about “next time” and we continued the transaction.

It took the young employee a long time to get back with the price. At one point I asked this manager, who had taken me to a separate register, “you want me to go back and check it?” She said, “no, no. Because you got no shoes.” But she didn’t kick me out. She and I just stood there for awhile. Eventually the young employee came back and we completed the sale.

I think this is a new technique I’m going to try in the future. Instead of getting defensive or just leaving, I’m going to try to get the employee to be on my side for a bit of gentle and harmless rule breaking. It probably won’t work very often, but it’s better than either walking out without my goods or having a confrontation that surely won’t end well.

Well, I’m almost 40% through the Shoeless June Challenge. Today was the toughest day yet, but I made it through.

Previously in June, I bought a car, got a haircut, went grocery shopping, went to a movie, went into a bank to get a new bank account, and went into a financial services office, among other activities.

Today I had two obstacles: a visit to a doctor’s office for a blood test and a concert with some friends.

At the doctor’s office, I checked in, was sent to the lobby, and was summoned by a nurse. She said, smiling, “did you forget your slippers today?” I mumbled some kind of response, and that was that. She took my blood and I was on my way.

The concert was a bigger challenge. I’d been barefoot to a daytime show at the same bar with one of the friends, and to an outdoor festival show barefoot with another of the friends, but never to a nighttime indoor show with either of them, and they don’t know each other that well. And I didn’t know the fourth guy at all. He was just a friend of a friend. All that combined to give me a lot of anxiety about my crazy plan, just showing up barefoot to a bar that might not let me in (even though they did last time I was there for the daytime show) and risk the ridicule or judgment of this group of guys I was with.

What made it worse, but then ultimately better, was that a few hours before the show, I stupidly sent a text to one of my friends that I didn’t intend to, that referenced that I was going to go to the show barefoot. I was really mortified when I realized I had sent it and couldn’t take it back. But then the weirdest thing happened. My friend, rather than ridicule me or tell me that going to the show barefoot was an insane thing to do, reminded me that I went to that outdoor show barefoot and that the punkers and stuff at the show seemed to be impressed with it. He also said he had already told this fourth guy that I had done that and he might be impressed by it too. In short, he gave me the social thumbs up to go for it. I actually couldn’t believe it. I’d been dancing around the subject for a long time, not wanting to bring it up because it might seem weird, and when it came up accidentally, my friend immediately conveyed he had no problem with it.

Anyway, at that point, I had to go through with it or he’d really wonder what was wrong with me. So I just walked right in, showed my ID, scanned my ticket, got a stamp on my wrist, and there I was. I had flip flops stuffed in my pocket but for the second time at this bar, it was clear I wouldn’t need them, so I threw them behind some boxes in a corner, never to see them again. I found my friends and sat on an outdoor bench with them, smoked a joint, then went inside when the first band started.

Two hours later, the show was over. One of my friends jokingly pretended to step on my foot. He asked me if I would drive home barefoot too. I said, of course, that’s the least of what I do, and recounted the story of how I bought a car from CarMax completely barefoot last week.

Later on, he texted me that his other friend, the guy I didn’t know, said I was “rad.” So I guess me being the only barefoot person in a bar (no one else even had anything but closed toe shoes) didn’t faze him. I didn’t really catch anyone else being concerned about my lack of footwear either.

It can be done. 11 days in (not 12 as title says but I can’t change it). 19 to go. Coming up next week: a visit to the eye doctor.

Remember this guy, who killed his girlfriend Gabby Petito and later himself? They were engaged in van life. It wasn’t widely reported, but he was a committed barefooter. He rarely wore shoes, hiked barefoot, and urged Gabby to go barefoot more often. Apparently one source of friction in their relationship was that he’d track dirt into their van, although this doesn’t make much sense to me because wouldn’t he track just as much or more if he was wearing hiking boots or shoes? But regardless, in a number of interviews of people who knew them, there would be stories about how he walked to the neighborhood convenience store barefoot, etc. Of course, given the circumstances, this was usually couched in terms of a red flag that he was a dangerous and unstable person.

I’m glad this aspect of the story didn’t get much traction. That’s all we need, people thinking that a barefooter is more likely to be a psychopath.

Yesterday my plan for a Shoeless June nearly failed right at the start. My wife and I went to a car dealership (CarMax) to buy a used car for my daughter. On the way there, we had this conversation:

Wife: you’re going to wear shoes in the dealership, right? Me: no, I’m trying to do a Shoeless June. Wife: what? You’re not doing a Shoeless June. You don’t need to do that. You need to wear shoes when it’s appropriate, like in a business, and just go barefoot when that’s appropriate. Me: oh, ok. (Wasn’t going to fight that battle at that point.)

But then when we got there, as I got out of the car, she asked, “are you really going to go in there without shoes?” I said, “can I? I just want to see if I can get away with it.” I promised to take a shower as soon as we got home. She resignedly said, “oh, ok.”

So we walked around the parking lot looking at cars for awhile. Then we went inside and asked for a test drive. CarMax is a fixed price dealer, so there was no haggling, but the process still took about three hours, between the test drive, sitting at the salesman’s desk in a big open wall-less showroom, being sent to a different room to pay for the car, being told to wait in the “lobby” of the big showroom until the DMV employee fetched us to her desk to sign some registration papers, then back to the lobby, then after waiting there for awhile while they washed the car, to the garage where they delivered us the car. So I was basically walking around the dealership or sitting in an open area barefoot for hours. Not a single employee made any reference or even seemed to steal a look at my feet (maybe they did from afar but I didn’t notice). It was a total non-issue.

On the way home, my wife said, apropos of nothing, “I can’t believe you bought a car totally barefoot.” She also made a joke about them sending me a cleaning bill for their gray carpet, which she theorized might have been sullied by my black feet from the parking lot. I think she expected it would be a way bigger deal than it was. “I don’t play by society’s rules,” I told her. “IDGAF.”

Later, I ordered some really spicy Chinese food and ate an entire forkful of hot peppers. She said that was a bad idea. I reminded her that “I don’t play by society’s rules.” “Stop saying that,” she said.

Anyway, close call, but Shoeless June continues.