HANSEL AND GRETEL SYNDROME

I think if Hansel and Gretel had been wearing the kind of shoes my men wear, their dad would have been able to track them down very easily, even through leaves and grass.

I swear that my guys don’t take a step anywhere in the house but what a big glob of mud or manure, falls off their boots. I sweep, dust mop, vacuum, mop, pull my hair out and want to scream, but know that won’t help. And I don’t think they even realize the mess they leave behind with each step. Every step on the stairs coming up from the basement has a “glob.” Every step coming from the back porch into the kitchen has a “glob.” Plus every place else.

            Their shoes have the waffle type sole on them. And they all have them. If they would only take their shoes off on the back porch, or when they come in the basement door. But these are lace up boots, and it takes time to take them off and put them back on. Especially if all you are doing is going into the kitchen to get your little red book to check on the number of a cow or a calf, a 2 minute job at the most – compared to probably 5 minutes for taking shoes off and putting them back on. I realize there are shoes without that “waffle” type sole, but these are the ones my guys like. It is almost impossible to convince a man to try something different, especially if he is comfortable with what he has!

            And of course we have had a muddy late winter early spring time here, which doesn’t help the situation. A pull-on shoe would help, but have you ever tried to walk through the muck and mud out in the corral with a pull-on shoe, and lose the shoe in the muck? So that’s not a solution. We could have all the books out on the back porch where the guys come in, but we really don’t have that room set up for book work. I guess they could lean against the washing machine or dryer to do their checking in their books, but I’m not sure they would agree to that.

            An office out in the garage, where they would have a desk, a telephone, and even a bathroom connected is another idea. That would save a lot of scooping of muck in the house. But I would probably be expected to visit the garage/office quite often to clean it  and I already have a house bigger than I can or want to keep clean.

Maybe I need to invent a shoe that the guys could wear that wouldn’t leave so many clues as to where they have walked, perhaps one with a detachable sole that was easy to take off and put back on.

            When it comes right down to it, I do enjoy my men dropping in often and I do have rugs everywhere. They don’t always walk on the rugs, but I certainly encourage them too. Sometimes I have to shout to make them hear me about using rugs. But I have found that mud dries to dirt and dirt sweeps or vacuums up easily. Manure doesn’t dry to anything but manure and it sometimes sticks to floors and rugs. But rugs can be washed and floors can be mopped and the day may come when we won’t have mud and wet manure being brought into the house on the soles of shoes. Then there will be something else that I can find to complain about.

            Come to think of it, maybe Hansel and Gretel were probably wearing the waffle sole shoes and tracked mud into the witch’s house. No wonder she set them to cleaning her home! Now that’s an idea! Maybe I should have the guys clean up their own messes, because I certainly act like an old witch at times when the floor gets a lot of mud tracked on it.