Poo on Your Shoe?

Poo on Your Shoe?

January 27, 2006, 7:08 am
Filed under: outdoors

It’s one thing when a girl has to knock mud off the bottom of her cleats, but what do you do when you accidentally step in something a little stickier, I mean stinkier? We aren’t the only mammals to enjoy running in grassy fields. When grass gets taller, more than just earthworms hide between the blades. A guide to cleaning poo from your shoes:

1. Do not try to de-poo your shoe indoors. Reduce contact between the shoe and your indoor environment. You may need to remove the shoe immediately. You may also need to remove the other shoe. If indoors, take the shoes outside. Check for any skidmarks.

2. Do not lift your shoe to ask, “Does this smell like poo, to you?” Your friends won’t help you.
3. Quickly determine the full area of poo exposure. If you have gotten a squish up your sock or on pants or sweats, don’t panic. We’ll get right to that in a minute. First we must address the poo on your shoe.

4. Get a stick. Knock off the big bits. Wipe the shoe in the grass. Tap your foot in a puddle.

5. Try the mud-dilution technique. If there is sticky good mud around you can step in the clean mud, and it will help pull the poo out of the grooves in your shoe. Good sticky mud can be a true dirt vacuum cleaner, and suck the poo out.

6. The extremely large leaf trick. This again should only be tried with very large leaves. You can do a wipe maneuver with your hand, then discard the soiled leaf.

7. Sidewalk curbs offer free rectangular public space, where you can do a footsole slap and slide move. This can shake out quite a bit of clogged poo.

8. Beware the double shoe slap. This well known technique is great for freeing mud or leaves or grass from your shoes, but the energy released in the slap of one shoesole on another can send many small objects flying. The last thing any of us want is to release a flying poo bomb.

9. Head for the garden hose. Place your upturned shoe or shoes in an area where a little released poo won’t do much damage. It is really just fertilizer, fresh, scented, something animals contribute back to the environment. Perhaps a flowerbed or some other dirty area. Make a really strong spray with the hose, and wash away the poo.

10. Poo does thankfully wash away. Soon the only bit left will be the memory. Unless you got some on your clothes as well. If you got it on your clothes, perhaps you should remove them and worship again at the temple of the garden hose. Do be sure and put something else on after you remove the offending garments and before you spray, unless you live someplace tropical.

The thing about stepping in crap, is that unless you have recently done it, you never think about it. Luckily human brains are blessed by both the ability to remember and the ability to forget. Usually I do not think about dog poo. However a few short hours ago I stepped in a vicious pile of dog feces. The smell crept up all the way from shoe to nose. I considered whether an underground animal had exploded a supersonic fart, then did my own shoe check. My check led to a large-scale shoe excavation, and then I had to write this story. In putting down these words, I forgot the smell. It’s gone, and I’m safe, until the next time.

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