WHY DO SOME PEOPLE get suh vex when you tell dem tuh take off duh shoes at the door before duh come in your house? Believe me, when you tell some people so, dem does get highly offended.
Now mind you, these are shoes dat these people does wear all day, all about, everywhere, and stepping in every kind o’ thing. But some like duh does decide dat it’s their right tuh keep on dem precious shoes regardless of if it is in your house or not.
You could call me wha’evah you like, old fashion, miserable or even a clean freak, but it ain’t got one thing tuh do wid my sweeping and mopping or cleaning the floor recently; it is just that I ain’t know where dem shoes went, what duh pick up and the main and most important thing is dat you bringing in wha’evah dem shoes pick up in my place, dat I does walk bout in, barefooted.
Look, you and I know dat all kinds o’ things does be pon the road. For a good while now, we have been seeing piles and piles o’ garbage all ‘cross the island and then last week, the rain tumble down; so you know dat a lot o’ dat garbage get washed all ovah the place where people does have tuh walk. Then the other day duh had a number of people in the newspapers complaining bout dirty water dat was running all out in the road, how offensive it smell and how some people had tuh drive through it; so who cahn drive ain’t had tuh walk?
I come along and see when people come tuh ya house, how they used tuh automatically take off duh shoes at the door and leff dem pon the mat. Nuhbody ain’t had tuh tell dem nothing, it was understood. But I ain’t know bout some o’ these new-fashion young families nowadays soul, it like it doan bother some of dem tuh walk straight through the house wid duh dirty shoes.
It like it doan matter tuh some o’ dem dat people does spit in the road, dogs, cats and vagrants does do duh ting all bout the road; then sometimes ya does see animals or even birds, dead in the road and the vehicles does be flying pass and over dem all day dat by evening ya does wonder if dat is the same thing you saw the morning. Then the rain does come down and wash it all ovah the place and people does walk through it and bring it straight in the house pon duh shoes.
Now leh we say, fuh instance, dat ya got small children and all o’ we know how dem does get on when duh inside the house. Dem does be flying up and down all ovah the place and most o’ the time duh does be pon the ground. They doan know or couldn’t care less bout disease, germs or getting sick from picking up something dat somebody walk in the house wid. The only picking up dem know bout is if something dem eating drop pon the ground, is tuh pick it up, and eat it too.
Now mind you, duh ain’t gine eat anything dat drop pon the ground outside because they were taught those things nasty and could make dem sick. But the house clean, so as far as they are concerned, nothing ain’t wrong wid picking up something dat drop pon the floor dat look clean and eating it . . . it is the same thing as eating it off the ground outside – if people does walk bout in the house wid shoes dat duh does walk outside and all ovah the place in.
I hope some people could see the common sense or logic in this article because Barbados ain’t the same place, and the people dat we come along and see and lived with years ago change too.
• Mavis Beckles was born and raised in The Orleans. She has an opinion on everything.
