Untied We Stand


There is an unwritten social law that if someone tells you your shoe is untied, you must immediately stop wherever you are and whatever you are doing and tie your shoe so you don't trip. You may have been going along fine for the past ten blocks with your shoelace untied, but the minute someone notices it, you are immediately in peril and must tie your shoe that instant or else you'll trip.  It's sort of the Heisenberg principal in reverse.  


When strangers stop me on the street to alert me to the fact that my shoelace is untied, however, I do not stop immediately, bend over and dutifully and gratefully tie my shoe. I might nod politely, but I keep on going until I find something to put my foot up on or I might even, heaven forfend, wait until I reach my destination before doing anything. You may think that it being my foot and my general well-being purportedly at stake, that that would be the end of the matter. However, since this is an unwritten law we're talking about, people often become unusually agitated and often downright insulted if I do not stop and tie my shoe that instant. They think that I am fucking with them. Now while fucking with people is one of my all time favorite things in the world to do, that is not what is going on here.


No longer a young man, I am now both overweight and none too limber, so for me stopping short in the middle of a block to bend over and tie my shoe may have all sorts of disastrous consequences. If there isn't a massive pile up of pedestrians behind me, there is still a good chance of all sorts of things untucking and popping out which would invariably lead to mass panic and stampeding on the street as other pedestrians attempt to flee the scene. What's more, bending at the waist and reaching for my feet is far more likely to lead to my having a heart attack or stroke than my not tying shoe would lead to my tripping. In fact, in all my nearly half-century of living, I cannot recall myself or anyone else ever actually tripping over an untied shoelace. A stumble maybe, but never a full fledged trip. Neither can I recall anyone ever falling onto a pair of scissors while running with them, nor have I ever seen a baby choke on the dreaded uncut grape or suffocate inside the nefarious dry cleaning bag. Furthermore, I have never had the misfortune to witness a child poke someone's eye out with a stick or jump off a bridge because his friend did. 


So if you see me on the street and my shoelace is untied, please don't worry about it. If you do feel concerned enough to tell me about it, please don't take it personally when I don't heed your advice. I do appreciate a simple heads up on dog shit though.