On Shoes and Laces

I wrote this little piece about 2 years ago, as sort of a writing audition. There were three things to choose from, and the assignment was to write 300 words on whichever of the three we liked best. The other two weren't terribly boring or anything, but they didn't instantly inspire something in me like "explain how to tie your shoes." While I realize that this was probably not exactly what they had in mind, it was more fun than writing a technical step-by-step of the movements involved in keeping footwear on one's feet.
The only things that have changed about this process since I wrote it are: I don't wear the food service shoes hardly at all anymore, and Chad likes his job a lot more now so the early morning grumbling is limited to expressing his dissatisfaction with mornings in general.


As a rule, I don't tie my shoes. I don't really like to. I tied them once long ago and whenever I need to wear them, I just shove my foot inside until I'm comfortable enough to walk. I apply this rule to any of the shoes that I wear on a regular basis: my everyday tennis shoes, my black non-slip food service shoes, and even my well worn Doc Martens with the buckle.

My husband ties his shoes. Every morning when he emerges from the bathroom, dressed in a wrinkly polo shirt and jeans of questionable cleanliness, he stomps over to his side of the bed and plops down, muttering about the early hour or the fact that he has to go to work again, usually both. He pulls on his socks, one after the other, and then grabs a huge work boot slightly unsuitable for his office job. He yanks it on, still muttering, and jerks both ends of the shoe laces hard enough to strangle his foot. After looping the laces around the first set of hooks, he crosses them and performs another foot-escape-preventing tug before looping them around another hook and beginning the end of the shoe-tying ritual. At this point, he has six or seven inches worth of shoelace in each hand. My husband prefers the longest and thinnest shoe laces he can find, though I'll never know why. He has to double knot them, and sometimes still manages to step on an end or a loop. I have a theory that he likes to buy shoe laces, since he goes through them like some people go through toothpicks. This theory is supported by his violent shoe-tying method, and the fact that should even an inch break off one end, he immediately rushes to the store to purchase another pair.

As far as everyday mundane tasks go, my husband seems to enjoy tying his shoes. And if something has to be done, one might as well enjoy it.