My soles after Wal-Mart this morning

That's what I've been using all summer as my logic to the places that have harrangued me. That's roughly 30% of the places. Out of those, the wallet=feet logic works about half the time.

 

LOL! Good point... it does stain bare feet much more than shoe soles, doesn't it? And indeed, many large stores seem to have quite dirty floors..

On the other side of the coin, quite a few years ago I stayed at a small hotel in Scheveningen, and it was *really* clean! I mean, I walked around the hotel all day, didn't go outside (we had a small SF/fantasy convention at the hotel, all the programming was on-site) and after a long day I was surprised to discover my feet looked as clean as if I'd just got up! The next morning I happened to run into the cleaning ladies who were working just outside my room and who, just out of curiosity, asked me about my bare feet. So I told them I always went barefoot, and I also told them what I'd noticed the night before and complimented them on their work! I'd been in much more expensive hotels and my feet would be at least somewhat dusty/grey... They were quite happy with my compliment, and they seemed to like the idea of going barefoot too. One of them was an African immigrant lady who said she used to go barefoot all the time back home, she had been wearing slippers, and she shed them while we talked... I wonder if she left them off or put them back on before going to the next floor (social pressure from meeting other guests or the boss... although there were no other guests in the hotel at the time and SF-con goers are quite relaxed on dress standards! ).
Btw, that was a really cool hotel, the entire staff not only put up with some of the strange things fannish people do (hall costuming, masquerade, live roleplaying!), but many even obviously enjoyed having us there. I wish I remembered the name... but I heard anyways that it changed owners since then and the new folks aren't as fun.

 

Albertsons recently posted lower than expected profits, and may sell or close many of their stores-i wrote the hq to remind them why they lost my money:no bf allowed...suggested that in this time of increasing competition, they might want to rethink any coporate policy that shuns legit customers-they wrote back a stock form letter thanking me for my suggestions...maybe soon they'll get taken over by Piggly Wiggly-i'd love to try setting my little piggies free in one of those...