No sooner than have the powers that be taken away man’s want of proper head-wear, now we are stuck with another scourge. Today was a day that men dread as it was a day that I was required to go shoe shopping. The aesthetics of footwear is not something that comes naturally to the natively hetero male. Further it appears that the shoe designer’s want runs decidedly counter to the one thing that feet require – comfort. But let this teacup residing tempest lie for the moment while we push further to the true atrocity.

Shoes are not allowed to be laced in the typical crossing manner any longer. No, now we have a supposedly more visually appealing “round and round it goes, how it tightens nobody knows” method. Instead of starting evenly at the bottom ferrules and working your way leg-ward like any right-thinking person would do, the useful idiots only tie with one half of the lace and then tuck the other half along the tongue of the shoe. This leaves no “ugly” crossing – just a series of transverse loops. So far, so good. However when one tries to secure one’s foot in the ill-laced shoe catastrophe ensues. Pulling on one lace-end causes the top to tighten. Pulling on the other does little other than make the hidden lace show itself in a random fashion leaving the wearer with a tight top, loose bottom and meandering middle. While one would think this obvious flaw would result in the death of this nonsense still it persists.

So, you ask me, what is the reason for the outrage? Fashion has lead young men to wear sizes of jeans best left for those described as “gravitationally endowed” and yet we have heard no public outcry from me. Well, let me enlighten you, brother. It is simply a Stalinist plot. By depriving the public of a simple engineering method by which one can secure loose goods their work to weaken the American mind continues. Today we do not know how to tie our shoes, tomorrow we do not know how to secure our sails, next week we lose the ability to build THE bomb.

Being a civically minded individual I will take the first shot at smothering this dastardly plot. Firstly, we must start in the schools. Our next generation must understand the grave national importance of lace-work. To aid in this pursuit perhaps the use of a friendly fictional character like Paul Bunyan or Nancy Regan could inspire the tykes to the good. Secondly shoe inspections should be conducted by the constabulary in a manner much like their attempts at velocity control. The wearers of nonconforming footwear would be sent to weekend retreats where their skills would be rebuilt to those more conforming to democracy. Lastly, as a show of our strength perhaps a great public works project using this technique could be initiated. For example that cantankerous San Andreas fault could be laced together using just this technology! This great feat would be visible from space so the perpetrator’s sputniks could look down upon it in awe and fear!

Until next time, citizen, keep those laces crossed!