Went to bed with his stockings on;
One shoe off, and one shoe on,
Deedle, deedle, dumpling, my son John
I remember, long ago when dinosaurs
roamed the earth and My Guy and I were dating, we visited my sister and her
husband at their place in Amherst. Young marrieds, fresh out of college, they
lived in the bottom half of an old white frame house.
She’d never been known for her tidiness
– an array of dirty dishes under the bed when she was a teen comes to mind – so
I was surprised by her request as we crossed the threshold. She’d asked if we’d mind leaving our shoes by
the door. Weird, I thought, but ok. My poor fella, challenged all his life by
aromatic feet, wasn’t sure what to do.
That was in 1969, and I hadn’t run
into this idea until then, only seeing this habit in movies involving Japanese
living. Now it feels like it’s becoming more and more common.
I have friends who automatically
removed their footwear when they arrive, and other friends who never do. It
seems as though if you’re popping by for an informal visit, off they come, but
I can’t imagine inviting people over for dinner and expecting them to eat in
their socks.
As someone not driven to disinfect the
freezer or wash the garage floor, I’d prefer people to remain shod. I’m a
little uncomfortable with people balancing on one foot in my front hall. It’s
not as though they’ve just plowed the back 40 acres. And when I visit, I don’t
want to be worrying on the way over about whether I have on that pair of socks
with the hole in them.
I take my shoes off when I come indoors because I prefer to be barefoot (or sock foot if it's cold) I don't ask guests to although my granddaughter did when she came over this morning. The amount of dirt my occasional visitor might bring in is a drop in the bucket to what my husband and I bring in.
ReplyDeleteI’m always barefoot at home simply because I hate wearing shoes.
DeleteWhen I was very small and our mum kept our house as if "Royalty" were coming to visit, we took off our shoes before entering and put on our "house slippers". I don't remember visitors being asked to remove their shoes, just dad and we kids.
ReplyDeleteI remember visiting a home with the same routine as yours and one of the small members of the family basically shaming me into removing my shoes too
DeleteHaving been born and raised on a prairie farm I fund it difficult to remove my shoes when I enter a house. Now everybody removes their shoes.
ReplyDeleteFunny - nowadays it seems like everyone’s behaving as though they live on a farm too and don’t want to track in hay from the barn.
ReplyDeleteI always remove my shoes at my house and at anyone's place that I visit after reading the studies about the invisible stuff we bring inside on our shoes. Out of thousands of shoes tested, nearly 40% of shoes tested carried C. Diff, an intestinal bacteria that causes diarrhea. Studies have shown that most shoes have millions of bacteria on them. No thanks! lol
ReplyDeleteGood grief. That’s a strong argument indeed!
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