Carrie Devorah/For The Examiner
Workers at the National Geographic building were left with smelly hands Wednesday, after they spent six hours tying shoes together to set the Guinness World Record for the longest chain of shoes.
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The 10,512-shoe chain obliterated the old record of a mere 840 shoes. The chain stretched 1.65 miles as it snaked around the courtyard of the National Geographic building several times.
National Geographic Kids asked its readers to send in shoes to help break the record. The magazine received enough to make two new basketball courts with the recycled material.
Cameron Diaz’s sneakers were the last to be tied to the chain. Also contributing were U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team members Shannon Boxx, Angela Hucles, Carli Lloyd, Lindsay Tarpley and Cat Whitehill.
But they couldn’t hold a candle to 8-year-old Peter from Mount Laurel, N.J., who collected 509 shoes. Even though Peter contributed to this record, his favorite Guinness Record is the longest fingernails and toenails because “it’s the most disgusting.” He told Yeas & Nays, “Me and my friends like the disgusting stuff!” (So do we, Peter, so do we.)
Peter would have preferred counting the shoes on the White House lawn, but Kirby, a fellow contributor from Fredericksburg, Va., was hoping for rain so that the shoes could be placed inside. To which his father replied, “That would be stinky.”
Summer reading is no competition for counting sneakers, as both Peter and Kirby have not finished their summer reading. “I’m going to blow it off until the last minute,” Kirby said.
