Monday, October 12, 2009

Take your shoes off and stay awhile

The culture here dictates that people usually take their shoes off before they walk into the house. Although I prefer to wear shoes in the house (and do), I don't have a problem with this custom. If someone wants to walk around barefooted that's their business. What I do hate is looking at a pile of shoes next to the door.

I've spent years pleading with my kids to bring their shoes into the house and put them away in their rooms. This has been just a waste of my vocal cords because no one has ever paid any attention to me and I've had to endure looking at (and usually tripping over) shoes by the door. I tried a shoe cabinet next to the door and just ended up nagging at the kids to put their shoes inside... which they rarely did.

But a miracle has happened! We moved to the farm and now have four wonderful, shoe chewing dogs! Anyone stupid enough to leave their shoes (or anything else for that matter) outside next to the door is guaranteed to lose them to the dogs who are delighted to have a tasty chewy toy. The dogs love them! Yummy shoes, scented with the tantalizing smells of feet and far off places.

5 comments:

  1. SALAM ,,,

    Oh how nice that dogs made it at last 

    Leaving shoes at the door … is something people get used to .. they think they don’t want to bring the dirt inside their homes and mostly women who is tired of cleaning and taking out dust and dirt who made these rules .. am just like you I don’t like that and it was always a subject to talk about when I visit my relatives .. I never take it off and walk into the home normaly… then I got the green card from them all after they are tired of asking me to remove it.
    The Turkish people have this idea when u enter their homes you find shoe cabinet and some slippers so they remove the shoes and wear the once for the home and they also have one for the bathrooms  its not bad idea …

    But I agree with you ,,,

    And I congratulate you with the new dog solution 

    Salam

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  2. Hahahahaha !I guess there really is more than one way to skin a cat , oops , I mean the dog , lol !

    I hate tripping over those darn shoes too. They ALWAYS leave them right in the door way instead placed neatly to the side , out of the way .

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  3. Yep its annoying to see shoes infront of the door. Thanks to the dogs as well, hehe

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  4. One solution is that you can take a pair of slip on light sneakers in your bag. This way you can take off your shoes and wear them inside even if the hosts don't have indoor slippers for guests.

    I am with leaving shoes outside because I believe it's more clean this way. we step on different kind of dirts outside in the streets. Just thinking about all the spit lying around that we step on makes me nauseous.

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  5. I think the custom of removing shoes is great.

    I have an whole blog about removing shoes in homes: Shoes Off at the Door, Please You might like to take a look.

    ReplyDelete

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