My Favorite Shoe of the Summer

If you're not in Texas at this very moment, go buy a lottery ticket--because you are obviously a very lucky person.  As I write this post, my air conditioner is fighting its own personal Battle of the Bulge, a minotaur is throwing a frisbee around with a pack of desert scorpions in my scorched front lawn, and I think I just saw Satan himself swing through the drive-thru of the snow cone stand across the street.

As you might have guessed, Texas in the summer is a blazing, fire-breathing wasteland--one which unfortunately still exists in a world that unwaveringly requires people to actually wear clothes outside of their refrigerated dwelling places.  So what is the modern southern gentleman to do?  Obviously, the suit and tie is on the rack until somewhere around December unless you're issued a promise of a well air conditioned wedding taking place no earlier than 9 in the evening.  Socks are out of the question unless you relish the thought of a good case of trench foot from all the moisture you'll be trapping around your suffocating feet.  What then?  Allow me to introduce my absolute favorite shoe for this scorcher of a summer--the canvas Sperry Top-Sider.

Men's Sperry Top-Sider Halyard 2 Eye, $55

These are the shoes you wear to breakfast, lunch, dinner, beach weddings, summer concerts, the park to walk the dog, date night, summer classes, jujitsu training, the firing range, anywhere!  Just ditch the socks and roll up the cuffs of your pants for an undeniably classic and cool summer look that'll ensure you keep your swagger while all the other guys have reset to the standard flip-flop/t-shirt/cargo shorts routine.

On a personal note, my pair came from the Mrs. for my 3rd Anniver-Shoe-ry Present (try real hard not to barf from the cuteness on that one) and I haven't taken them off since!  To be honest I'd avoided the whole "boat-shoe" fad for quite a while--as it has been the all-season staple for frat boys for a few years now.  Nevertheless, the boat shoe is back in a big way.  And with a huge number of designers putting their own psychedelic twist of color on them, there's no better time to rock a shoe that'll turn heads and set you apart from the pack........not to mention protect your feet from that flip-flop-melting magma-filled parking lot you'll be walking across going to work.

Stay cool, my friends.