Conservative humor: Here's Why I'll Be Keeping My Shoes on in Your Shoeless Home

[tenderfoot]

Why are you assuming that your guests’ shoes are dirtier than your floors?

Huh?

Shoes are one of the things that separates us from other species. Not only are shoes fabulous, but they protect our soft and not-very-well-designed feet from threats both foreign and domestic. Every single toe that I ever broke got that way while I was not wearing shoes.

Despite their incalculable value to the human race, many people maintain a shoeless home. Some of them believe that forcing people to remove their shoes before entering will help keep their floors clean from the various things that exist outside.

Now, I’m not a barbarian. If I am entering the home of someone from a culture in which wearing street shoes inside is a sign of disrespect, or if my shoes are covered in snow, mud, blood, condiments of any sort, lava, excrement, concrete dust, or biomedical hazardous waste, I’m of course going to take them off. And I don’t really need to be told to do so.

But barring shoes outright just to keep your floors clean is bringing a gun to a pillow fight. Turns out there’s already an effective old-fashioned way to achieve your goal of a clean floor while neither insulting my hygiene habits nor endangering my delicate, vulnerable, long-suffering feet: It’s called a doormat.

In other shoeless homes, it isn’t the dirt that owners fear. It’s the germs. For these folks, shoes are superspreader events. They likely got freaked out by a 2008 study by scientists at the University of Arizona that found that 96% of shoe soles have fecal bacteria like E. coli on them. Gross, right? Shoes are the devil.

:snip:

To add to the ignominy, next comes the physical challenge of actually taking off the shoes. Unless there is a thoughtfully placed stool, bench or chair at the entrance to the shoeless home, shoed visitors are required to lean against a wall to take off the shoes. What if the visitor is elderly or infirm or just has bad balance? Due to my broken toes and related joint maladies, it is difficult for me to take off my shoes even in the best of conditions. What if I topple over and injure one of my few undamaged body parts while complying with your ridiculous shoeless-home diktat? Once you stop laughing, you’ll feel really guilty about it.

:snip:

If you do keep a shoeless home, you should also know that you are probably endangering your family’s health, not just their feet. Exposure to low-level filth, like that tracked in by friends who refuse to remove their shoes, actually helps bring a little bit of the outside in. Engaging with outdoor microbiomes is, Dr. Scott says, one of the ways that human immunity is developed. You love your children, the little fecal bacteria bombs, don’t you? They gotta eat some dirt in this life, so why not get them started at home? They’ll grow up healthy and strong and go on to get great jobs and make lots of money and support you in your old age.

My shoe policy for our home is this: Unless there is something seriously nasty visibly stuck to the bottom of your shoes, they should remain on your feet unless you personally desire to take them off. And then, my friend, you’re on your own.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/heres-why-ill-be-keeping-my-shoes-on-in-your-shoeless-home-11644503227

FA HA HA

She funny!

[mahina]

1. Oh hell no

Hemo da slippas or no come in my house. That’s just nasty.

If you need, I have house slippers for you.

[intrepidity]

2. Ew. Nothing creeps me out more than when

I see--usually on TV shows/movies--someone getting onto a bed with their shoes on. Just yuck! Do people really do that?

The author of that piece is ignorant imho. I feel strange walking in my, or anyone's house, with shoes on.

[Silent3]

3. Is the "Dr. Scott" referred to here Scott Atlas, of Trump admin infamy?

Since the article is behind a paywall, I can't check myself.

[tenderfoot]

6. Can you open links in incognito mode?

You may be able to see the full article.

[blueinredohio]

4. No shoes in my house either.

[meadowlander]

5. Basically: I'm an entitled asshole who thinks my internet research trumps your right to make rules

in your own house.

[bigtree]

7. I don't know who needs to know this

mariana Z @mariana057 4m
I don't know who needs to know this but even if a bear wears socks and shoes, he still has bear feet.

Link to tweet

[SWBTATTReg]

8. One solution I've seen are the plastic?/nylon? shoe wraps that I see folks slip on over their shoes.

Of course, the issues are the same, for the elderly, slipping these on over your shoes can be awkward unless there's a seat or similar for others to use in putting on/taking off such protective shoe garb. I do believe in one's castle and what they wish for their home, and if they wish to maintain their sense of protectiveness w/ such garb, then who am I to say otherwise, I'll respect your wishes and wear the protective shoe garb.

With the way, however, on people reacting w/ masks, I suspect that the same nonsense w/ masks will happen w/ this protective shoe coverings.

[MineralMan]

9. The thing I used to hate the worst was estate sales

where you were expected to remove your shoes. There was never a place to do so safely, no chair to sit on, and typically there were dozens of people traipsing around in their sock feet, looking at the overpriced loot in the house. So, you had to sort of just pile your shoes somewhere near the door.

The floors would have to be cleaned anyhow before the estate house went on the market, so there was really no point to the shoes off policy. It just made no sense to me at all.

[EYESORE 9001]

10. I am amused

when people insist that people take off their shoes, yet have wall-to-wall carpet installed throughout their house.

[greenjar_01]

11. Reads like a B essay in First Year Composition

[GoCubsGo]

12. God gawd, what a fucking self-centered, disrespectful snowflake.

If you want to wear shoes in your own filthy dump, have at it. If you don't have enough respect for other peoples' wishes, then stay the hell out of their houses, and shut the fuck up, you selfish ninny.

[blogslug]

13. The human foot is amazing

That writer doesn't know shit about design.

[renate]

14. I'm obviously in the minority here, but although I take my shoes off in other people's houses,

I always end up being in terrible (albeit localized, so I can deal with it) pain. Flat feet sound trivial, and in the grand scheme of things they are, but going without shoes can really be a problem for some people. And for others, wearing shoes is simply more comfortable. I always keep my shoes on at home or I would be in too much pain to clean it, ironically.

I don't have a problem with vacuuming often enough that a little street dirt can't come in without upsetting me. But I do, obviously, always and without complaint do what the homeowner prefers.

I agree that most human feet are amazing, but mine are duds.

[Blaukraut]

15. We're a 'no shoes' house, too

Although visitors don't have to take their shoes off unless it's raining or snowing outside. We have a bench where people could sit and take off their shoes and store them in a slide out basket. However! After a while I noticed that a LOT! of people have stinky and sweaty feet and would leave damp footprints on my floor. At first I had a bunch of slipper socks they could put on, but that was gross, too, because they needed to get washed every time. Now we have disposable shoe booties with non-slip soles.

Our dogs aren't immune from my aversion to dirty feet. They get theirs cleaned with a baby wipe every time they've been outside

[eppur_se_muova]

16. I think they're trying to make an analogy with masks -- but it doesn't work even halfway. nt