Getting Loopy

I went through a "nothing makes sense" phase a few months back and with all of the technical achievements we've experienced and the medical advances we've made, some things have either stalled in the fast lane with one foot in the bucket or rolled downhill. I think about things like this when I'm leaving the house in the morning. Recently, it was while I was tying my shoes.

I'm not really interested in history but I have seen photographs and paintings of people in the past. While admiring the confidence and genius of Benjamin Franklin in a painting, I noticed that he had buckles on his shoes. I'm not sure which came first, the buckle or the lace but I do know that the buckle is a better way to secure your shoes. They're more attractive, reliable and they're neither too tight nor too loose because you can fasten them in the same setting every time. I do see buckles on shoes, but laces have to outweigh them twenty -to-one.

I learned how to tie my sneakers before I entered kindergarten. My parents didn't want me to be that kid who walked around with his shoelaces flipping and flopping around and getting dragged through who-knows-what. Little boys had their mommies to lean on for boo-boo kissing, fixing the Big-Wheel and tying their shoes. There comes a time in a man's life when he has to trade in his patent leather Stride-Rite shoes for a pair of sneakers. With the new footwear, I thought I could get around tying but mom said only big boys who tied their own sneakers could go to school.

My first big-boy sneakers were blue Pro-Keds with the really thick white rubber soles; only the coolest kids at the playground wore them and I wanted to be one of them. Lace tying is somewhat of an art form and it's either a do it right thing, or stay home and miss finger painting.

With any lace tying endeavor, you have to first inspect the laces. The plastic tips have to be intact and not in any kind of a peeling or fraying state. Next, you have to pull the laces straight up to make sure they are the proper length. If one is longer, the other would obviously be shorter and an entire re-lace may be in order. Attempting to tug the longer lace a smidge at a time through each individual metal eyelet could be an hour long ordeal, and somehow it only makes the long lace even longer. A pair of scissors could even things out but then there's a plastic tips issue to contend with and we'd be moving backward instead of forward. However you do it, you have to postpone the tying until the laces are even.

Once the tips are equidistant from the top of the sneaker, it's time for step two. Criss-cross the laces over one another and push the top lace under the bottom lace; pull both ends tight. The laces will look something the beginning of a hair braid.

Then, take one of the laces and make a loop. Wrap the other lace around the loop, then make a loop with that lace and pull it through the part you just looped until you're loopy looking at all of those loops. Pull all of the loose ends tight until the loops and the ends of the loops coming through the center of the knot are the same length. Move to other sneaker and repeat.

When I tie my shoes, I do a half kneel with the ball of my rear foot on the ground with the front foot planted firmly in place. This may seem like a secure position, but I realized it wasn't when my brother pushed me mid-tie and I ended up face first in the mat by the front door and ended up with grass in my teeth. My fingers were so into the tie that they could untangle themselves long enough to stop the falling. After that experience, I'm convinced that kneeling and tying is one of the most vulnerable positions a person can be in. That's why soldiers in combat sleep with their boots on.

To avoid a retie midday and be put in one of those awkward positions, the double knot is in order. This can be achieve by criss-crossing the loops and folding one over the other, then pulling tight. The only challenge is that when you want to take off your sneakers, you'll need a lot of patience, the knot untying skills of a Boy Scout or a pair of scissors.

The whole goal in shoe tying is to get your laces to look like the floppy ears of a bunny or Prince Charles anytime after the age thirty-five. This is somewhat of a complicated process and it may take a few attempts to get it right. And if your fingers turn to all thumbs and you're cursing the God of shoelaces and you're patiently waiting for Air Jordans with a buckle, there will always be Velco.

Origin: break-seduction.blogspot.com