I have a question!

[conuly]

I go barefoot. A lot. Every chance I get, in fact. I hate shoes. Now, for years people told me to cut it out because "you might step in glass or something, and die of tetnus". (They eventually stopped. I think they got tired of always being wrong). I'd always reply, reasonably, that I didn't see any glass, and that if they could show me some glass I'd be careful to walk around it. This always, ALWAYS prompted/prompts the response:

Well, there could be glass!

I don't understand that. There is no glass. Look up the street. No glass. Look down the street. No glass. Simple observation will tell you that there is far less glass on the street than most people commonly believe. Were there glass, one could easily walk around it, the same way one walks around dropped toys and other dropped... things. I am neither blind nor stupid. I am perfectly capable of seeing obstacles on the ground and not walking on them. However, it does not matter. There is never any glass. I have seen glass on the sidewalk so rarely that I can actually list up the times. And most of the times, the glass was right up against a building, not in the middle of the path.

What confuses me is that, when confronted with one of life's harsh realities, namely the fact that there isn't any glass, people always say "but there could be!" as though this means I should take excess precautions where there clearly isn't any glass (or rusty nails, or lit cigarettes....)!

Why do they do this? Why don't they say something else? I'd even "what would you do if there were?", because that opens some sort of discussion (not much, what I'd do is walk around it). But not only do they expect me, apparently, to protect my feet against imaginary dangers, they also don't like me looking around and pointing out that these dangers don't exist! And I just don't understand that.

Comments

[dimethirwen.livejournal.com]

I, too, do not believe in shoes. My dad hated it so much that every time I would come into the house he would demand to look at my feet and if they were dirty I wasn't allowed in until I had washed them off.

Still, I do not believe in shoes.

[conuly]

Oh, I *believe* in shoes. They exist. I also believe in cats, snowflakes, and clouds. But not sidewalk glass. Any incidence of sidewalk glass is merely a statistical anomaly, and cannot be considered proof of the entity.

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

A shoe didn't stop a rusty, mud-covered nail from going through my foot. I got a tetanus shot and went home with a hole through my foot.

Fuck their stupidity.

[conuly]

Heck, forget that. I once had a thorn, a wooden THORN poke right through my shoe.

Didn't bother with a shot, just pulled the thorn out.

[xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com]

I think if I were trying to convince someone to wear shoes (although I'm not sure why I would), I would be more worried about dog/bird poop than broken glass. Although, my dad did step on broken glass at a beach once, and my cousin did step on a rusty nail, and I did get a staple stuck in my foot as a kid, I'm a lot more worried about poop. *shudder*

[conuly]

I would be more worried about dog/bird poop than broken glass

Oh, seriously. I'm smart enough to avoid doggydo, but not other things?

[rachelkachel]

I see lots of glass on sidewalks around campus. But then, I walk by a lot of fraternities.

It doesn't stop me from going barefoot occasionally, when my flip-flops hurt my feet.

[conuly]

Okay. It's fair to say "there could be glass" when you can point to an incidence of glass. But here, there isn't. There is the very icky "gum so old it's black and a lot of people don't think it's really gum", but I wear shoes in those areas.

[the-turtle-girl.livejournal.com]

Go barefoot! Screw the damn glass...I have stepped on glass, nails, screws, needles, and lit cigarettes and I did not get tetanus or die. I still prefer being barefoot over anything else.

So, now you have at least one person that is urging you to go barefoot!

[conuly]

I've stepped on some of the above as well, without getting cut. And sometimes I did get cut, but funnily that was always in my basement or backyard, not the big bad scawwy world.

[minkhollow]

...Can you even get tetanus from broken glass? I thought it was rusty metal that caused the problem on that end.

[conuly]

You get tetnus from a type of germ, not a type of material. And they were also afraid, I'm sure, that people just wantonly tossed nails in the street and left them to rust.

[eirik.livejournal.com]

eh.. the only foot type injuries I sustained while I ahve bare feet were the result of jumping off a railway trestle into water and hitting a rock on the bottom (40 foot drop into about 10 feet of water)

that's it after 28 years of barefootedness. but if I feel I need the extra protection? I wear sandles.. which cause inmy mind more injuries to me.

[conuly]

I always feel safer in bare feet. Okay, there's a slim chance I could miss seeing something and cut my foot - but I could just as easily cut my hands chopping dinner. More easily, really. No shoes have the traction of my feet, not that I've found. And I fell enough growing up that this is Very Important to me.

A theory...

[queengodzilla.livejournal.com]

Common superstition?

It's like a story I once heard: A girl sees her momma cut the roast in two halves before the woman puts it in the oven. She asks her momma "Why'd you cut the roast in half?" and the mother goes "I did it because my mother did. Why don't you go ask her why she did it?" so the little girl goes to the grandmother and asks her why she did it and the grandmother goes "I don't know. My mother did it. Go ask her." So the little girl goes to her great-grandmother and asks "Why did you cut the roast in two halves before putting it in the oven?" and the great-grandmother says "Because my oven was too small for the roast as a whole." XD And those women mindlessly carried on that tradition for no other reason except what they saw their mother do.

Maybe it's like that with the whole "ZOMG! You'll get glass/nails/tetanus/the wrath of Satan on your foot! AND DIE!" Maybe in the earlier days it applied more, but not now. And maybe people got so used to the warning that they still apply it today.

As for me, I'm a born and bred country girl. Been barefoot most of my life! The only time something impaled my foot is when I stepped on a honeybee. It stung my heel and I didn't notice anything walking until I felt heat in my heel. I turned it upwards and there was a struggling insect on it. I screamed and went inside and had my grandparents and mother take it out. They were like "That's what you get for not wearing shoes!"

XD;

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

I like to go barefoot, mostly.

Unfortunately, if I go somewhere I'm going to do a lot of walking, I have to wear shoes cos I have a talipes foot & wear splints to correct.

I was only in danger of glass in my feet when I used to go clubbing a lot at 18-20.

The biggest danger around here is duck poo(hard to see sometimes as it's green & quite liquid). It washes off easily enough, though.

I say go barefoot as you have none of those issues as far as I know.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

People say these things because a) they're projecting their own fears, and b) they think they're being protective and caring when they tell you.

I get something similar when it comes to traveling. I love to travel - in other countries, usually alone. But everytime I'm preparing for another trip, I have to deal with the bullshit of people telling me how dangerous it is to travel. Alone. In another country. Cuz I'm a girl. I tell them that the only time I've ever been victim to a crime was when I was at home.

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

What she said - broken glass symbolizes hidden dangers. See my mini-essay on the subject at Rough Soles. :-)

[mizemm.livejournal.com]

I often walk barefoot too. Complete strangers will stop me on the street, and ask me, in a stern, parental tone, "Where are your shoes?!" I either ignore them, or reply, with a big smile, "At home." Even when no one says anything, I always get a lot of stares. I've always thought it was really sad, the way our society needs everyone to be 'safe' all the time. We are obsessed with safety. And with needing to be like everyone else. Perhaps Port Townsend will prove to be a little more relaxed.

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

I like what my friend Isyllt says when confronted by people like that. She looks down at her bare feet, screams, and cries "Oh, NO! The aliens stole my shoes!!!", and then looks at the people who scolded her with a Do you now realize how stupid you're being? expression. As she is painfully cute with deeply expressive eyes, this usually works wonders. :-)

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Depends on where you are, how many hazards are littering the pathway. It could, I suppose, be said that you would be spending all your time looking at where your feet are going in some circumstances....

(Now, I grew up in the country. The land on which we lived had had a house on it previously which burned down, so any patch of soil might often prove to contain such dangers as broken glass or rusty nails. Matter of fact, one of my worst scars came from kneeling on a glass shard while crawling under a barbed-wire fence.)

I think the rusty-nail thing has arisen because rust indicates that it's old and dirty and has picked up tetanus spores from the environment, whereas a new, shiny, clean nail is far less dangerous.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

It could, I suppose, be said that you would be spending all your time looking at where your feet are going in some circumstances....

Which could potentially be a hazard when doing something like crossing the road (and crossing at lights are the sorts of place you do get glass underfoot from people rear-ending each other.)

They might be seeing glass that isn't there.

[joeymew.livejournal.com]

Yup. My dad and I have had an ongoing battle over barefoot driving. It helps me drive better, I can feel the petals. He somehow thinks that there's something sharp that I'm going to step on when I need to step on the breaks that will cause me to pull my foot away and crash. Which somehow ignores the fact that I'm obsessive about keeping my car clean anyway, so there wouldn't be anything sharp there.

[velvetchamber.livejournal.com]

People are just being overly interested in something that is none of their business. Just like city_of_glass always has people offering him advise on where to get a haircut, just because his hair is long. The same as when people bother saracalister and ask him repeatedly why he doesn't shave his (very handsome) beard off... It's just rude.

[dimethirwen.livejournal.com]

I, too, do not believe in shoes. My dad hated it so much that every time I would come into the house he would demand to look at my feet and if they were dirty I wasn't allowed in until I had washed them off.

Still, I do not believe in shoes.

[conuly]

Oh, I *believe* in shoes. They exist. I also believe in cats, snowflakes, and clouds. But not sidewalk glass. Any incidence of sidewalk glass is merely a statistical anomaly, and cannot be considered proof of the entity.

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

A shoe didn't stop a rusty, mud-covered nail from going through my foot. I got a tetanus shot and went home with a hole through my foot.

Fuck their stupidity.

[conuly]

Heck, forget that. I once had a thorn, a wooden THORN poke right through my shoe.

Didn't bother with a shot, just pulled the thorn out.

[xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com]

I think if I were trying to convince someone to wear shoes (although I'm not sure why I would), I would be more worried about dog/bird poop than broken glass. Although, my dad did step on broken glass at a beach once, and my cousin did step on a rusty nail, and I did get a staple stuck in my foot as a kid, I'm a lot more worried about poop. *shudder*

[conuly]

I would be more worried about dog/bird poop than broken glass

Oh, seriously. I'm smart enough to avoid doggydo, but not other things?

[rachelkachel]

I see lots of glass on sidewalks around campus. But then, I walk by a lot of fraternities.

It doesn't stop me from going barefoot occasionally, when my flip-flops hurt my feet.

[conuly]

Okay. It's fair to say "there could be glass" when you can point to an incidence of glass. But here, there isn't. There is the very icky "gum so old it's black and a lot of people don't think it's really gum", but I wear shoes in those areas.

[the-turtle-girl.livejournal.com]

Go barefoot! Screw the damn glass...I have stepped on glass, nails, screws, needles, and lit cigarettes and I did not get tetanus or die. I still prefer being barefoot over anything else.

So, now you have at least one person that is urging you to go barefoot!

[conuly]

I've stepped on some of the above as well, without getting cut. And sometimes I did get cut, but funnily that was always in my basement or backyard, not the big bad scawwy world.

[minkhollow]

...Can you even get tetanus from broken glass? I thought it was rusty metal that caused the problem on that end.

[conuly]

You get tetnus from a type of germ, not a type of material. And they were also afraid, I'm sure, that people just wantonly tossed nails in the street and left them to rust.

[eirik.livejournal.com]

eh.. the only foot type injuries I sustained while I ahve bare feet were the result of jumping off a railway trestle into water and hitting a rock on the bottom (40 foot drop into about 10 feet of water)

that's it after 28 years of barefootedness. but if I feel I need the extra protection? I wear sandles.. which cause inmy mind more injuries to me.

[conuly]

I always feel safer in bare feet. Okay, there's a slim chance I could miss seeing something and cut my foot - but I could just as easily cut my hands chopping dinner. More easily, really. No shoes have the traction of my feet, not that I've found. And I fell enough growing up that this is Very Important to me.

A theory...

[queengodzilla.livejournal.com]

Common superstition?

It's like a story I once heard: A girl sees her momma cut the roast in two halves before the woman puts it in the oven. She asks her momma "Why'd you cut the roast in half?" and the mother goes "I did it because my mother did. Why don't you go ask her why she did it?" so the little girl goes to the grandmother and asks her why she did it and the grandmother goes "I don't know. My mother did it. Go ask her." So the little girl goes to her great-grandmother and asks "Why did you cut the roast in two halves before putting it in the oven?" and the great-grandmother says "Because my oven was too small for the roast as a whole." XD And those women mindlessly carried on that tradition for no other reason except what they saw their mother do.

Maybe it's like that with the whole "ZOMG! You'll get glass/nails/tetanus/the wrath of Satan on your foot! AND DIE!" Maybe in the earlier days it applied more, but not now. And maybe people got so used to the warning that they still apply it today.

As for me, I'm a born and bred country girl. Been barefoot most of my life! The only time something impaled my foot is when I stepped on a honeybee. It stung my heel and I didn't notice anything walking until I felt heat in my heel. I turned it upwards and there was a struggling insect on it. I screamed and went inside and had my grandparents and mother take it out. They were like "That's what you get for not wearing shoes!"

XD;

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

I like to go barefoot, mostly.

Unfortunately, if I go somewhere I'm going to do a lot of walking, I have to wear shoes cos I have a talipes foot & wear splints to correct.

I was only in danger of glass in my feet when I used to go clubbing a lot at 18-20.

The biggest danger around here is duck poo(hard to see sometimes as it's green & quite liquid). It washes off easily enough, though.

I say go barefoot as you have none of those issues as far as I know.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

People say these things because a) they're projecting their own fears, and b) they think they're being protective and caring when they tell you.

I get something similar when it comes to traveling. I love to travel - in other countries, usually alone. But everytime I'm preparing for another trip, I have to deal with the bullshit of people telling me how dangerous it is to travel. Alone. In another country. Cuz I'm a girl. I tell them that the only time I've ever been victim to a crime was when I was at home.