Growing up in an ultra-clean house, I always thought it was normal to take your shoes off before entering a house. It was not until I was older that I realized it was a Japanesey thing to do, and despite my Americanization I still take my shoes off where ever I live. Just makes a lot of sense to me that you would take your shoes off before walking around the house. And I don't judge people who don't do it...since they are not worth judging because they are filthy sub-humans and should all perish in an apocalyptic fire.
Yet there are times when I might walk around the house with my shoes on if I'm leaving and forget to grab something on a table or in the bedroom. When those moments occur, I do take large strides hoping not to spread my shoe germs all over the floor.
This morning, I was leaving for work but forgot my cell phone. I already had my shoes on so I just took large strides towards the phone. Grandma Ichikawa was eating her breakfast, and needless to say she was not happy to see my shoe germs spread across the floor every three feet (my legs are short so my stride isn't that big...sue me.).
"What are you dooooing? Dirty dirty! Don't walk around with shoe on!" said my mom with exasperation.
"Mom. I just have to grab my phone...and look I'm taking large strides."
"Kid play on rug and your dirty shoe going to get them sick. And you no take large stride. You have short leg."
I tried to reason with my mom. "Don't you know that studies show that it's actually not that good to keep your kids too clean? I've read that it's actually good to have your kids play in mud."
"Well dat make sense. Mud is clean."
Double take. Spit take. Eyes bug out.
"What? Mud is clean?"
"Yah! Mud clean. Your shoes is dirty though. Tsk tsk..."
I really should have left for work at this time, but I got dragged deeper into this conversation. "But how is mud any cleaner than my shoe? If I walk through mud, does that make my shoe clean? And if shoes are dirty, if they walk on dirt that turns into mud, does that make the mud dirty?"
"Your shoe dirty because outside is dirty with poo-poo and shi-shi (Japanese word for urine) and you walk all over sidewalk. But mud clean because mud made with water and water clean."
Convincing my mom that the rain would wash the sidewalk full of poo-poo and shi-shi into the dirt making mud filled with poo-poo and shi-shi did not work. I eventually left for work grumbling to myself that I spent way too much time arguing about the cleanliness of mud versus my shoes. And what do you know that walking to work from the parking lot, I stepped in a little bit of poop. But guess what I did? I wiped my shoes in dirt. SO THERE MOM! BOO-YAH!
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