HALT! WHO GOES THERE? THE DREADED STILETTO

By Shelley Youngblut

It’s that time of year again. With the last freak snowstorm as much a distant memory as the Flames’ playoff hopes, we’re finally free to relegate the mitts, scarves and tuques to plastic bins in the basement, and pull out our capris and shorts (and a razor) in anticipation of a spring that has finally sprung. Best of all, our salt-stained winter boots, having soldiered through a six-month campaign battling snow and sleet, are now on leave... at least until September. Out come the sandals, slingbacks, flats and flip-flops, and with them the entranceway dilemma: Is it ever okay to leave your shoes on once you cross over the threshold from the outside world?
In the winter, that’s an easy etiquette question for a Canadian to answer. No. Absolutely not. Beginning at a very young age, it’s been drilled into us that you take your boots off IMMEDIATELY, wobbling in your down jacket like a Weeble as you pull that toxic Kodiak off your foot and leave familiar salt-and-pepper puddles in the black-rubber boot tray. This knee-jerk behaviour is reinforced in schools in the form of the boot rack, where children dutifully jail their offensive outdoor footwear, then don their precious “inside shoes” (soft-soled and germ-free!), purified from the ankles down in preparation for the learning process. (As a form of punishment at my elementary school, the Grade One teacher would make the offending kid stand with his—it was always a boy—head in the boot rack in the hall. It left the rest of us terrified of outside footwear and more than happy to rid ourselves of it once we made it inside the safety of our own homes.)

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