Does Sloth Wear Shoes?

Dr. Sloth is known to be a cruel, plotting villain who spends his time making diabolical plans to take over the world that are sure to fail. Apparently he’s part chicken, but who knows; there aren’t any green chickens to be seen throughout Neopia, unless you count a Green Lenny.

This mean chicken wears the same black and red cape and robe whenever he’s seen, whether it be on a TCG card or on a lunch box. Well, the question of whether he ever does laundry is unanswered, but we’ll worry about that later. DOES HE WEAR SHOES???

To have a response to this difficult question, I have interviewed several Neopians, and have gotten a number of different and much exaggerated responses.

The Space Faerie, all-time heroine of Neopia, who has defeated Sloth countless times, has said that when they are in battle, even in the air, she cannot see his feet, because he sews them into his robes. Can Sloth sew?

Some of the Grundos that see him once in a while say that even if you made him walk on a glass, transparent floor with a basement under it, you can’t see his feet because he makes sure to bounce on a pogo stick half the time.

I decided that it was time to ask some official figures in Neopia. So I trotted all the way to some of the major shoe-making companies in Neopia. The first one that I visited had a grumpy old Acara for a president, and he didn’t seem too keen on talking about Sloth’s feet, so I scuttled over to one of the employees.

I asked her if they made any shoes for chickens, and she gave me a strange look and told me that they made shoes for ants in that factory. Wrong one, I suppose...

The second company I went to was much more friendly and cheerful. I questioned the manager about Sloth’s feet, and he said airily that Sloth’s assistant’s manager’s son’s best friend’s cousin-in-law’s niece twice removed was the one that always shopped for shoes at their place. I left, mainly because I couldn’t remember all that information.

The third and last industry that I paid a visit to was a small one, just thirty or forty branches throughout Neopia, not a lot. They only had about two hundred Neopets working at the factory itself, so I went over to one particularly huge and bulky Grarrl and asked him if they made any shoes fit for Sloth.

He nearly cried for some reason. I found out, later, that he was Sloth’s nephew’s stepson, and that he was only there because Sloth had threatened to make him eat his cooking if he didn’t go cover for the question if his stepfather’s uncle wore shoes. Poor guy – I must go and comfort him some time.

And, finally, I asked the Faerie Queen, Fyora, about this puzzling predicament. She just sighed and sat down at her study chair, and after a long time, she asked me if I wanted a few biscuits and some tea.

SO WHO KNOWS IF SLOTH WEARS SHOES???

Now, I have researched every other little possible fact about Sloth that I can possibly find for a sane human that is just hopelessly on a quest to answer this simple, yet complex, question. Every time we sight Sloth, his robe is always covering his feet (or claws, in a chicken’s case), so we can’t be 100% sure if he wears shoes or not. We can, however, have a very belated opinion!

If you’re evil, and you always spend your precious minutes plotting and thinking up evil, ridiculous, frivolous plans to rule Neopia, you hardly have time to do anything else. I have concluded that he has just enough time to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. And we’ve never really seen him in the marketplace or bazaar of Neopia Central, shopping for shoes, right? Maybe Eliv Thade shops for shoes, but I don’t think that Sloth does.

And, well, yeah, the guy doesn’t REALLY need to wear shoes anyway – he could spend his NP on great items of power, or weapons that could help him win over the world! Oh, wait, he doesn’t really have that much money. Oh well! If you’re just an olive green chicken, living in denial and exile and evilness, you don’t need shoes anyway! If I were Sloth, I would spend the NP on – pizza!

And if he washes his feet (SOMETIMES), his unseen little feet might just survive the cold, bitter winters that he might have in wherever he lives. Oh, yeah, he lives underground. So it will survive the dirty, worm-filled cave that he harbours, alone and friendless... foot-washing is the absolute great replacement for shoes, in Sloth’s case!

Aha! But here’s the flaw in this almost-perfect theory: Just because we’ve never seen him wearing shoes that are visible, it doesn’t mean he goes around shoeless. I mean, you do need shoes to sweep around a huge lab filled with evil and scariness, with rats and whatnot squeaking around! If Sloth crawled, he would get his knees dirty. If he rolled, he would get himself all mucked up. So maybe he does wear shoes after all...

Let’s make a little prediction here. Say that you were a green chicken with a bad habit of failing to take over Neopia, and were desperate to make yourself seem more evil and more famous – but who needs to be more famous when there are tons of products featured about you? Anyway, back to the topic. If I were Sloth, and someone asked me if I wore shoes, I would tell them either to go mind their own business, or I would ask them if they wouldn’t mind passing me the salt for my chicken casserole.

If Sloth doesn’t wear shoes, then someone needs to go tell him it’s bad for his feet, and he’ll need to go to the doctor to get a remedy for warts and blisters soon. If he does wear shoes, I am going to bet that they aren’t very fashionable.

So, there’s the answer to our mysterious question – does Sloth wear shoes? PerHAPS...