Shuck your shoes

I think I've adjusted well to living in another state, I survived the snow,  my ears got used to the accents, and I gave up hopes of finding a spaghetti squash out of season. Somethings though still strike me as odd.

And one of those is the custom here of removing your shoes when you enter a house.

This is not done in Arkansas...at least not where I'm from. Granted where I'm from lots of people don't even wear shoes.....

...but chatting about my inner hillbilly is a whole other post.

In fact I don't think I've ever taken my shoes off at someone's house, unless they were a little...you know - neat freakish. It just seems wrong...intimate even. I think it's the socks. In Arkansas I never saw anyone's socks. They were either wearing shoes or it was hot and they were barefoot. I never saw my husband's socks until we were married. So all of a sudden we move here and everyone is asking me to take my shoes off and I felt like I was in the middle of a bad porn movie.
Of course now that I've been here for a while I know why there is this custom of shucking your shoes....11 months of out of the year their is either snow or mud on the ground. So it makes sense, but it's still hard to get used to.

For example, our furnace broke the other day (Yes we were using our heat in May, it was 40 degrees!) so our landlord said he would send over Mr. Furnace to check it out. Yes I giggled. No I don't feel bad. If you are going to name yourself Mr. Furnace I'm going to giggle...probably a lot. A few hours later there was a knock on my door and a man said "I'm Mr. Furnace, I heard you've got a problem with your heat." and he stepped inside and tore off his shoes. Come on....you can't tell me that's doesn't just scream "cheesy love scene" to you.

What impressed me though was that he had to go back and forth between the house and his truck several times and with each trip he would put his shoes back on and off! I was shocked that he cared about my carpets so much but still couldn't look him in the eye while he stood there in his socks and I kept thinking of how funny it would be for Jason if he should come home and see a pair of man's boots by the door. Of course it didn't help matters that the next day Mr. Furnace called for me....and I was gone so Jason answered. "Uh, Mr. Furnace here (giggle) I fixed your wife's furnace yesterday and was just calling to make sure everything was ok."

I NEVER had a worker call to check up on what he had fixed in Arkansas. Jason found it amusing "So, he only took his shoes off huh?...And he's just checking on the furnace...uh huh."