Wednesday, 6/22

I wonder what you'd find if you DID look down there.

While in Chicago last weekend Loraine had a thought, a thought that popped into my head again yesterday morning as I was walking to work. Loraine's thought, as we were riding the L train, was this—what would you find on the bottom of yours shoes if you did a DNA test on them after a day in Chicago?

Odds are, the results would not be pretty. Especially if you, like we were doing at the time, had just ridden the Blue Line.

Like I said, I thought about that again walking to work and noticed one of those piles of vomit that seem to grow on a daily basis halfway up the Front Street hill. Add to that the usual stuff you find on a city sidewalk--spit & sweat of runners, the blood of bikers, the waste products of dogs, and the, uhm, wastes of people who may have spent the night passed out somewhere, and your shoes would probably be covered with a gumbo of humanity.

But, sad to say, probably not a very tasty gumbo. Or a very healthy one.

Until Loraine had made that crack last weekend, I never actually devoted much thought to what I walk through on a daily basis. But maybe I should. I mean, when I go running early on a Saturday morning, before people have had a chance to clean things up from the previous night's activities, I can see some pretty nasty things. I don't run through them, but they're there. And even after the clean-up occurs, I'm sure some trace lingers. So when you consider everything that gets “expelled” by humans and animals on a sidewalk or a bike path, it's a wonder our shoes don't somehow mutate from all the DNA, and get up and walk off on their own.

Although that could be an interesting concept for a horror movie, when you think of it.

Of course, we come in to contact with all kinds of disgusting stuff on daily basis, as Covid proved, and try not to give it a second thought. I suppose if we did, there would be some among us so repelled by the thought of everything we're stepping in that we'd never want to step outside again. Thankfully, I'm not one of those people, although, like I said, I'd never devoted an ounce of brain power to it before last weekend.

But now that I'm thinking about it...

8-)

Don't worry; I shan't become one of those people I just mentioned. Too much of my life (many of my favorite parts, in fact) are lived outdoors. There's no way, especially during what passes for “summer” up here, that Id lock myself inside just to avoid a little “human gumbo”. However, that does not mean that I won't be looking a bit askew at the bottom of my shoes next time I take them off.

After all, you never know what might be residing down there!

(jim@wmqt.com)