Smelly feet

I've never really been the kind of person to take my shoes off when I go into someone else's house, especially my own. Unless they specifically request it, but when they do, it makes me feel weird. Walking around someone else's house in my socks (or no socks) with a bunch of other people just doesn't feel right.

Then I married Andy, who is half Japanese and we moved into his parents' old house. His Japanese mother added this entryway onto said house - a specific place for people to leave their shoes when they came in. It has some Japanese name, which I cannot remember at present.

Andy convinced me I would love it, and I wasn't so sure. But when he pointed out that I would have an entire shoe room instead of just a few measley racks in the closet, the idea grew on me.

Just look at where I get to store all my shoes!

And thus I joined the club of taking off my shoes when I came into the house. Actually, I probably became the leader.

Usually, it's not too big a deal. We take off our shoes, and when people come over and see the big pile of shoes, they take off their shoes too. No big deal, right?

Except last night, we had the young men and young women over to our house to work on a movie project with Andy. I sat downstairs catching up on The Martha Stewart Show (she has great ideas okay!) while everyone sat upstairs writing their scripts and throwing popcorn all over the kitchen. When everyone left, I went upstairs to help Andy clean up, and the whole upstairs reeked.

It. Was. Rank.

Smelly like an entire high school basketball team had wiped our furniture, cabinets, and appliances down with their wet jerseys after a championship game. And we even had really strong scented plug-ins and a Scentsy "candle" burning - what the heck? When I told Andy it smelled like a locker room, he said he's pretty sure it was one of the young men's feet. His feet?

Maybe I just don't get that because I didn't grow up with brothers, but holy cow! Whose feet are stinky enough to smell up an entire first floor of a house?

Before they came over, I spent 30 minutes cleaning the floors so that their wouldn't get dirty inside my house, but when dirty feet come inside my house and make my house dirty, it makes me not very happy.

This poor young man, I don't mean to pick on him. But I just might rethink the whole "remove your shoes before you walk into my house" thing.