29 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

Lesson 3

Lesson 3. Always Tie Your Shoes

Adults are always saying to me “Tie your shoes,” “Your shoelaces are untied!” “Check your shoelaces! You’re going to trip on them.” And this is all good and well, except, why does no one remind me this when I’m not wearing them?

It had been raining all day and as a result the grass outside was muddy and wet, and after doing (in the words of our coach) a ‘Gatorade’ dry lands so were our clothes, hair and sneakers. My sneakers were muddy and wet and there was no way I was going to put them back in my bag with my clean change of clothes for after practice.

It just wasn’t happening.

While I sat their having a great philosophical debate with myself on what to do with my muddy sneakers my friend Stephanie smartly picked up her own sneakers and tied the laces to the clamp on the front of her bag. I followed suit.

I felt extremely smart as I left swim practice that night with my muddy sneakers tied to the front of my bag. “I tied my sneakers to the front of my bag, so my bag wouldn’t get muddy,” I stated smartly to my mom when she picked me up. Little did I know, that this would be my downfall.

The next day I had practice again, I put a fresh towel in my bag and headed out the door sneakers thumping softly against my bag. I threw my bag into my car and jumped in, off to practice I go!

Practice today was at the closer pool so it was only about a fifteen minute drive. When I pulled into the parking lot I still was 20 minutes early. I grabbed my bag from the seat beside me and shut and locked the car doors.

I walked into the pool in high spirits.

I walked into the locker room dropped down my bag and started to put on my suit, I opened up the zipper on the front of my bag and reached in to grab my cap and googles.

I froze in mid-grab.

I looked once, then twice, then again. I even picked it up and shook it to make sure.

It was gone! The hook on the front of my bag, where my two sneakers had been tied was now only tied to ONE sneaker! I opened up my bag and dumped the contents out, maybe the sneaker had somehow grown legs and crawled into my bag.

It hadn’t.

I now faced a dilemma, I was wearing my swimsuit and I needed to go check the parking lot….. I stood there for a moment before destitutely taking of my suit and putting back on my clothes.

It had now been 5 minutes.

I closed up my bag and tossed it down on the pool deck, not even bothering to put on shoes I ran outside to the parking lot. I walked slowly and carefully searching both for sneakers and oncoming cars.

Of the two of them, I had only found cars so far.

I walked around the lot and looked under cars, I searched around the outside of my car and stood there stumped for several minutes. I could clearly remember there being two sneakers tied to the front of the bag this morning when I put my towel in.

I tried the car door, it was locked. I left the keys inside so I decided I was going to have to try to crawl through the partly open window.

Let me pause here for a moment:

I don’t drive a car, I drive a truck.

That’s right folks, a legitimate Ford F1 50 black Pick-up truck which cabin sits approximately 5 feet high in the air….. and I was going to try to get in through window?