date for the soccer game

when i was young, i had the same grand ideas about myself as they have and for a while i thought all i needed, to be handsome, was a pair of sandals- the open kind, made of only a strap and sole. and a pair of purple socks to go with them, so i bought the sandals and my mother knitted me the sock and i made a date for a tuesday at the lower tavern.

so there i stood examining the metal fitting around the keyhole until i felt ready to move in for the lineup, and even though the lineup turned out to be from the previous week, i read it through again because i'd felt my right purple sock and sandal sick into something large and wet, and i didn't have the courage to look down. anyway, i read it through again all the way to the end, where my name was, and when i finally did look down, i saw that my sandal, the open kind with only a strap and a sole, had sunk into a large dog turd so i tried reading the lineup through yet again, slowly, name by name, all eleven names on the second team, and then my name as substitute, but when i looked down i was still standing in that awful dog turd. and when i looked up, who should i see coming out of his gate but the boy i had the date with, so i undid the strap, pulled my foot out of the purple sock, and left sandal and sock.