"...but those dirty barefooters might put their feet on my groceries!!"

We have all heard illogical statements pertaining to bare feet in food stores. This statement which insinuates the threat that somehow a barefooter's feet germs might end up on their food!

Raise your hand if you have not heard that one....

Now with that in mind, look at this advertisement I just found in our local paper!

As a barefooter... no as a human being with a brain... I have enough common sense to not put my dirty feet on anything myself or others will be eating. But somehow for some shoe wearers, opening your beverage with the bottom of a dirty flip flop not only ok, it is being advertised in the paper! As long as we are wearing shoes, germs can not be spread right.

And for 49 dollars?? Come on!

 

Truth always complicates an illogical fear like this. If you keep your feet out of their store, I am sure that person sneezing into the meat case will not cause them any poroblems.
What happens to those poor folks that do not have arms and do EVERYTHING with their feet? They drive, shop, cook and write. The horror. Don't mail a dirty "foot" letter to me!

 

Oh, I'd heard of those before, but since I have not had that comment (again, here in the Netherlands there's far less of this irrational fear that anything off my feet somehow ends up on the products in the store), I hadn't really thought of the link... This is a very nice thing to point out to people who are concerned about germs on the groceries!

On a related note, Adidas has a sneaker that doubles as a game controller. Okay, you don't have to open your bottle with it but you do have to hold it in your hands. Wonder how many kids are going to be playing this game with a bag of chips sitting next to them? Here's the link to this strange product:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/107/1071052p1.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

Although not shoe-related, another bit of bizarre kit seen recently are these keyboard pants:



One has to wonder how long it will be until this is becomes the next big thing:

 

Actually, this picture points out another irony of the "...but the bottom of your feet are dirty" argument—people wearing shoes don't have any compunction about placing their shoes on inappropriate surfaces. How many people prop up their shod feet on a table or desk without giving a second thought to what's falling off the soles? (Of course, this point is equally valid for barefooters who put their feet up.)

 

True, and I agree that putting one's feet up is rude, but the bottom of the barefooter's feet are likely cleaner than the bottom of the shoddie's shoes, since we watch where we're walking and typically clean our feet much more frequently than most folks clean their shoe soles...

 

where would these people be? and why would they be wearing shoes in their house?