The illusion of cool

Does anyone else stop to ponder when seeing these shoes, "Where the heck are the laces tied?" Or is that just me?

The other day, Max informed us that he was going to need some cool skater shoes to match his skate board. Those shoes with the nerve of having ridiculous options like tread, cushion support, and arches just weren't cool for skateboarding. I obliged because Max gets a lot of great hand-me-downs from his cousins. And so, maybe a new pair of shoes isn't too much to ask, I suppose.

So, we get him the shoes. They are very cool. And then we went to tie them. First of all, there are two sets of laces in each shoe. And they were approximately four feet long...each. And I seem to remember watching some teenagers skateboarding at the skate park, because that's where we hang out for the life lesson of ineffective and non-creative ways to use expletives. So, in doing all that, I noticed the teenagers had intricate lacing system, but no ties. Interesting. But how did they do it?

Our next stop was the mall, and I can't stop staring at skater shoes walking by. Eventually, we breeze by some SK8R BOI store of some sort. Because it turns out, they have those specialty shops at the mall. So I just walked in and announced myself. And you know how when you bring your kids into a fancy store, the lady runs over and asks to help you for fear that they are going to break something and they need to keep an eye on you and those pesky kids? Well, I think these guys were reciprocating that scene except they were pissed some minivan driving mom was in their store ruining their reputation of bad assness. Because they jumped off the cashiers table he was sitting on and rushed over to ask what the hell I wanted or I guess, could he help me. Mind you, I'm wearing workout capris, a t shirt, ASICS and my hair is in a pony tail. I've got my certified mommy purse and kids in tow. Ricardo is lagging way back for fear of embarrassing him as well.

"Uh, Hi, clearly I'm not fashion savvy, and I know and you know that if my son steps foot at school with this travesty of laces, actually laced and tied...can you help him?"

He looked down at them and agreed, yes, indeed. It was a travesty of shoe laces. And then the grimy low-riding jeans with the wallet chain and perfectly messy hair, tattooed all up and down guy, took Max over, and very kindly re-laced his shoes for him. This time, the cool way. I still don't quite get how he did it. And I imagine a bunch of a guys at the skate park re-configuring shoe lace threading and tying as we know it. Some how they are tied under the tongue of the shoe. I don't get it. Doesn't look very comfortable to me.

I'm pretty sure they re-laced his shoes because they felt sorry for him that he had such an unhip and unfashionable mother. Trust me kid, I've seen that look of fashion pity before. Still, for the guy's efforts, I bought a dress for Lucy on sale. Ricardo was worried it wouldn't fit since it wasn't a kid's store. However, as suspected, it turns out, it did....their clothes fit a third grader who might be up to 60 pounds by now. Is that bad fashion form? To buy an 8 year-old a dress from a grunge teen shop? Yeah? No? Well, they took my money. So, there's that.

I have to tie Max's shoes now. It's become quite a heavy responsibility and also a problem. I hope I get this right. Once we perfect it, I'll be the mom encouraging him to just leave them tied so we can just slip them on and off.

So, sorry guy in the SK8R store for potentially ruining your mojo rep. And thank you for helping my son with his shoe fashion statement. I think the guy appreciated I would waltz in and ask for fashion help for my kid. I hope Max saw it. Because OTHER moms would simply make their son do the laces all wrong.

That's how I roll.

Song of the day: Fake Believe by They Might Be Giants