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Friday Fun Thread for June 21, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I suggest an experiment. Buy two identical pairs of white sneakers. Wear the first pair every day. Do not use the other pair. After one week (one month), compare them. Most likely they won't look identical anymore. (It is unlikely but a possibility that you never step outside regularly cleaned indoors spaces, but I find it unlikely.)

There is dust and mud and trace amounts of grime, trash and animal life and occasionally, human life on the sidewalks. Dust is ever present outside where there are cars, despite daily cleaning of streets (which is rare). I know this because of brush my shoes approximately once in a week.

I have sometimes gotten the impression that other people, my neighbors, in roughly the same environment as me, just have a completely different experience with the ground and their shoes than I do.

I run a children's art studio. I wear brown hiking boots there at all times, because there are children stepping on chalk pastels and whatnot. Sometimes a child comes in wearing new white tennis shoes, gets a drop of paint on them, urgently tries to clean them with paper towels, and then cries about it. Every time, I find this incredibly perplexing. These are shoes! That you have chosen to wear to art studio! How is this a surprise!?! And yet it is.

Let's say that there is in fact dirt and dust I don't notice - then is it really a problem? Dirt (as in soil) is not gross, there's no reason to be disgusted if trace amounts get into your house. I don't want my floor to be covered in visible dirt, but an occasional cleaning is plenty to keep that from happening.

Not to attack you, but do you have good vision? I can see house dust, let alone street grit. If I'd just cleaned and a few people walked in straight from the sidewalk in their shoes, I would bet it would be noticeable immediately. Fortunately, my country universally regards shoes in the house as the sign of being born in a pigsty.

Yes and no. My vision is awful without glasses, but it's fine with glasses.

I admit the dry dust is not usually disgusting. When it accumulates, it becomes noticeable and annoying. How annoying, it depends on the choice of the carpets and/or floor material. In a temperate climate, there is usually something else than dry dust, too.

All sort of wet and-or sticky dirt is instantly noticeable and disgusting.

I mean, I don't want mud all over my floor either. But it's not hard to notice if one is stepping in mud and tracking it into the house. In that case I take my shoes off.