THIS HAS TO BE SAID
Okay, SOMEBODY’s got to talk about the elephant in the room, so it may as well be me. The elephant to which I refer is, of course, SHOELACES! There! It had to be said, and I said it – and I’m glad I did, because if somebody doesn’t do something about it, they’re going to take over the world!
It began, insidiously, several years ago when I bought a pair of sneakers and, when I tied them up, had enough lace left over to make a fair-sized hammock. ‘Okay’ I thought. ‘Somebody made a mistake at the shoelace factory. Possibly the cutting machine operator ran out of aglets and, when he went to find some, forgot to turn the machine off. Or perhaps he bent over to tie his shoes.’ Who knows? I wasn’t there. But such were the possibilities I entertained at the time.
Then, later in the same year, I bought a pair of boots suitable for inclement weather – specifically mud and snow, these elements representing two of the predominant seasons here in Moldova as they do in my native Maine. When I tried them on in the store, however, deja vu – but in brown rather than white! There was sufficient surplus lace to truss a small cadre of miscreants until their bulging eyes were all that could be seen, hence preventing them from executing their malevolent plans.
As there were no miscreants about, however, all I could do was look down upon the small mountain of excess lace – equivalent in quantity and distribution to leftovers of Italian night at the local bowl-a-rama – sure that I must be on Candid Camera.
Alan Funt was not, to my surprise, forthcoming from behind a nearby aspedistra – probably for the best, since he’d been dead for some years by that time, still…
All of which begs the question: “Huh?”
I mean, people all over the planet are dragging surfeit miles of laces in their train, imperiling themselves and passers-by with braided strings containing enough cotton to clothe the children of several third-world nations!
Why are you laughing?
I’m serious!
So: what to do with it? Double-bow? Triple-bow? Quad and Quintuple bow? Tim Tebow?
I’ve tried ’em all (well, not the Tim Tebow…yet), and there’s still enough left over so the residual pile doesn’t begin to unravel until I’ve gone twice ’round the block!
I know I’ve opened a can of worms, but if the general population isn’t allowed to vent on this critical issue, the pressure to do so will become explosive.