Around this time last summer, while driving in my air-conditioned automobile, I noticed an abominable smell. I thought a skunk had died. After a bit of detective work I found the smell was emanating from my feet and sandals!
Smelly feet and shoes can happen to anyone. I'm sure you have stood or sat next to someone with this problem, trying hard to hold your breath and too polite to say anything.
I asked a couple of friends if they had encountered the problem. One told me that when he brings his teenager back from basketball practice at Catalina Foothills High School, his feet and sneakers stink so bad they drive with the car windows open.
Suddenly dollar bills flashed in front of my eyes. What if I could invent something to remove the smell? I'd be rich and be able to shop at AJ's (just kidding — it's the best grocery store in town and I use it daily).
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So I went to CVS and Walgreens; they both have a whole range of stuff for smelly shoes. I tried them all but they didn't work. The dollar signs were growing before my eyes. Then to The Walking Company in La Encantada — after all it's where I got my ECCO sandals. The customer-service representative sold me a container of stuff he said would do the trick, while tactfully not holding his nose. It didn't work.
Still more dollar signs. If I could find the answer I would be really, really rich. And so to the Internet, that oracle of all information, good and bad.
According to WebMD.com: Your hands and feet have more sweat glands than any other parts of your body — 6,000 on each extremity. You don't smell your palms because they are in open air. But your feet are constrained in sneakers or sandals and the sweat — actually bacteria — forms a type of fungus that permeates the leather and goes into the seams. After a short time it starts to smell.
The Internet had a number of solutions. Wash the footwear in bleach (ruins the leather), bake them in the oven (that's for potatoes and melts the rubber in sneakers), set them out in sunlight (just gets the shoes hot and doesn't work), scrub them in baking soda (nah, sorry) and the one I love most of all: "Place your sneakers or shoes in the freezer overnight."
Actually that works. When you remove them from the freezer there's no smell … until they thaw. None of the suggestions worked.
Now I was on a real mission to mega riches. With 300 million people in the United States, many of whom have smelly shoes, all I would have to do is sell each person one bottle of "Smelly Shoes No More" and the missus would be in jewels and furs for her remaining days, God bless her. But how to find the cure.
Then lightning struck. Would a chemical used to remove skunk odor also work on shoes? The old method for removing skunk smell was tomato juice, and it does work, but I felt people wouldn't want to soak their sneakers in tomato juice.
I then found a small company near Atlanta that has a concoction that promises to eliminate 100 percent of the odor from smoke, gas, rotting garbage and a number of other sources too foul to mention here.
But would it cure smelly sandals? I talked with the company over the phone and a representative assured me it would. I bought a bottle and my plan was to test it and get the rights to sell it exclusively as "Smelly Shoes No More."
As the summer drew to a close and the new sandals I purchased this spring started to smell, the day came for the great test, the first step to my millions. I religiously followed the instructions for the concoction, soaked my shoes, put them out to dry — and lo and behold — when they'd dried I found the stuff did NOT work, at least not on my sandals.
Anyone have any other ideas? Find the answer and I will split the profits. In the meantime, don't stand or sit too close to me.
