August 24, 2003
Dept of Strings
Larry stood in line with pride.
He needed some shoe strings, and today was his first visit to the newly created Federal Department of Shoe Strings. Larry had followed the series of newspaper articles exposing the shoe string industry. His indignation grew to outrage as it was revealed every shoe string company in America was making a profit. Not only that, but they were using cheap Chinese labor to produce the laces!
Larry marveled how he had gone all his years without realizing there was no government agency to keep shoe string prices down or protect the consumer. And he had to admit, it probably would never have even crossed his mind if nobody had done anything to correct the problem. “It’s amazing nothing really bad happened” he thought. Until now, when a man bought a pair of shoe strings there was just no way to tell what he was getting. “It’s a better day dawning” he mused.
So here he was, taking a half day off work standing in line at the Federal Department of Shoe String Distribution Center. The line stretched around the corner. Larry was glad he had gotten there early. A door opened and a man in a dark suit came out. He was wearing orange shoe strings. The man noticed Larry’s gaze. “They’re out of black today” he mumbled self consciously as he passed.
Larry looked ahead and saw his friend Pete. He waved. Pete waved back. Pete had fallen on hard times. Laid off a year ago he had still not found work. Pete previously worked for a company that sold dye to the big shoe makers who used it to color various parts of shoes and shoe accessories. When business took a turn for the worse the company, putting profit before people, laid off extra workers. Pete was one of them. “Lucky for Pete this shoe string program was begun last year” thought Larry. “A man has a right to a decent pair of shoe strings.”
The door opened again. A teenage black carrying a basketball came out the door. Larry noticed his high top shoes were laced with very tiny bows at the top. Larry remembered the Department had decided on a “one lace length” policy to avoid possible discrimination lawsuits. Larry had never liked the sloppy look longer laces had allowed and was glad to see young people would be looking more respectable from now on.
Thinking back on Pete’s unemployment, Larry just had to shake his head. Even as the government mandated more and more solutions there seemed to be less and less jobs. Larry was disgusted by the number of companies who, rather than make one less truckload of profit, simply closed their doors. “Rich people are just taking their money and refusing to play anymore” he concluded. “Unbelievable! How can people be that greedy?”
The door opened again and a rather dejected looking man walked out. His shoes had no laces. He walked slow and made a loud “clopping” sound. “Forgot to bring enough photo ID’s.” he said. Larry felt sorry for him, but not that sorry. “How do you expect to get anything if you can’t prove who you are?” Larry thought.
Less than two hours later Larry was in the air-conditioned pre-processing room. The government official began.
“This shouldn’t take long. Own any fire arms?”
“Nope”
“Ever had an inclination to express your religion in public?”
“No. Certainly not.”
The questioning did indeed proceed quickly. Soon the government official was saying “There’s the restroom. Fill this, label it and give it to the lab technician. And if all goes well we’ll have you going home with a pair of new shoe strings tonight!”
The government official smiled. Larry smiled. Larry felt very safe.
The government official rose to go. As he reached the door he turned to glance down at Larry’s shoes tied on with worn brown laces. “Don’t know if we have that color though.”