A Quick Biology Lesson

When I was in college, I had a professor who always told us "Fat Albert" stories.
Stories that lead up to more stories.


So here is my Fat Albert story.

When I was in college I studied stream ecology. We took many field trips to streams where we would study their ecology, the flora and fauna, etc. Occasionally we would collect water samples to take back and analyze to determine the health of the stream.

One of the first things that we learned was that each stream or body of water has it's own biology/ecology. It's own microorganisms, it's own plant life, it's own balance. By introducing organisms from other bodies of water, we might do harm and throw the balance of the stream off.

So after each field trip and trip into a body of water, we were required to scrub and bleach down our waders and equipment. We spent a lot of time over the sink with a scrub brush scrubbing the bottoms of our boots. It's really a very responsible thing to do. It protects our waterways and keeps us from transporting these bugs.

So. On to the second part of my post today. Yesterday I came home from church and changed. I had to go out later in the evening, so I left my nylons on and just put on my jeans over them. Not wanting to put holes in my feet, I slipped a pair of anklet socks on over them. Well, our day went on. I napped, had dinner and prepared to go back out again. I took my socks off and put them on the bed, put my skirt on and headed back out. When I came home, it was still early enough I didn't want to jump right into bed. So I put my pj's on. I stood there for a moment contemplating my socks. I very rarely will ever put a pair on twice. Even if they've only been worn for a minute. I've been known to go through three or four pairs a day. But as I stood there, I found myself not caring that much. So I grabbed them and put them on. I put my first one on, then as I put my second one on, I realized I was putting them on the wrong foot. The one that was previously on my right foot, was now on my left foot and so on.

So my question is this:

Do you think that each of my feet have their own individual microorganisms?

Do you think that by mixing up my socks I've contaminated my left foot with my right foot's goobers?

Have I permanently thrown off the ecology and biology of my feet?


Have I doomed myself to to a lifetime of foot organism chaos??

Excuse me, I have to go scrub my feet off.