BLOG: Early Morning Musings, an Essay on Shoestrings

It is time to address the all-important question of shoestrings.

I recently broke one of the shoestrings for my second-best pair of sneakers.  (Yes, I do have two pairs. Actually, I have three, but the third pair has been relegated to lawn duty exclusively.) Fortunately the break took place close to the end, so I was able to adjust the remainder to make the shoe wearable, albeit with a very small bow. As the dogs and I took our morning walk the next day and I pondered this dilemma, the notion came into my mind that with some pair of sneakers I had purchased in the recent past (meaning since 1975), I had received an extra pair of shoestrings.

When I got home that day I went to the drawer where I would have put such things and realized that I was looking at a mother lode of shoestrings. You see, in 2012 it is impossible to buy one pair of shoestrings. The International Shoestring Cabal has decided that shoestrings can only be sold in sets of two pairs. If you need one pair, you still have to buy two. The ISB (the aforementioned International Shoestring Cabal) finds this an excellent way to build up profits.

For me it only builds up the pile of shoestrings in the shoestring drawer. Say you bought two pairs of 24-inch black shoestrings in 2007. Now it is 2012, and on the morning of Uncle Ernie’s funeral you break the shoestrings in your black wingtips. Do you say to yourself: "I have a pair of these back at home that I bought in 2007?”  Probably not. You probably won’t even remember that you bought them.  But even if you do, you’re at work and going straight to the funeral, and you don’t want to keep Uncle Ernie waiting by going home for shoestrings, so you buy another pair. Actually, another two pair. You put one pair in your wingtips and toss the other pair in the drawer when you get home.

Anyway, when I opened my shoestring drawer nine pairs of shoestrings in varying colors and lengths were waiting for me there, including one that did fit the sneakers I mentioned back at the beginning. In addition to those nine pair, I also found five individual shoestrings displaying various stages of wear. I am a frugal person, not to say cheap. These five shoestrings were the widows of five other shoestrings that bit the dust somewhere over the years. Obviously I had saved them…just in case. Never know when you might need one brown 36-inch shoestring. But their moment had never come, and I have the sneaking suspicion that I don’t even own the shoes they came with any more.

So … you better sit down for this … in my old age I am getting even wilder and crazier than I used to be … I threw away those five lone shoestrings. Never let it be said that I don’t know how to have fun.

Of course next week I will probably break another shoestring and need that brown 36-inch shoestring I just threw away. Not having that, I will have to go out and buy a pair of shoestrings. Make that two pairs of shoestrings. You got me again, International Shoestring Cabal.