A friend’s Swiss ex-husband found it annoying when she and I pranced barefeet around their pristine flat. He thought we were behaving in an uncivil manner. Oh well, pardon me for being from a civilisation that is only a few thousand years old!
Those, who never walk barefeet, also never experience the wetness of sand standing on the beach, the dryness of the sand off the beach; the coldness of the floor in the bathroom, the warmth of heated tiles in the living room; the rough touch of tarmac outside the house when you run after your pet, the soft touch of a silk carpet you step on first thing in the morning.
And some are lopping off toes to squeeze their feet into Choos and Manolos? Sorry, I forgot I am from a civilisation several thousand years old. May be lopping toes is what ‘civilised’ people do now.
I don’t like it when people walk in their dirty shoes in my house. And I don’t see any need for house slippers, if you have a carpeted flooring. I know that there are some people (like my mom) who have to wear house slippers because they can’t tolerate even a minuscule speck of dust. But if your house is extremely clean, then using shoes indoors would be ‘uncivilized’ in my opinion. By the way, who decides what is civilized or what in uncivilized? Not all of us come from the same civilization anyway!