You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Sez who? 

Not this old dog.

My grandma showed me how to tie my shoes ("Your mother didn't teach you?") and since then I've tussled with shoe laces.

Don't tell me to switch to shoes with Velcro closures. Unable to hold them on my skinny feet—2A with 4A heels—I walk right out of them.

So I tie my shoes. The problem: I had to stop two or three times a day to retie my shoes before they fell off my feet. Finally I felt forced to double-tie my shoe strings. That worked. I wore my shoes double-tied for years.

Then one morning my friend Stan noticed me double-tying my shoes and he laughed. "I never do that but my Elizabeth" (his ex) "always double-tied her shoes that way." 

I snorted. "Of course you never double tie your shoes, Stan. You're a man. Your shoes come with strong shoe strings, not like mine." And I grumped on into my day.

Decades passed. I still grumble when I double-tie my shoes; I grumble even more when I untie those double-knots.

Then one day I remembered that conversation with Stan. I look at my shoes. They definitely are not the shoes I used to wear: pink sneakers and the like. My current shoes are no nonsense black leather walking shoes. 

The longer I looked at them, the more they looked like a man's shoe. I examined their sturdy laces. 

Could it be that I no longer have to double-tie? That I've graduated to Stan's level?

Delighted, I decided that this old dog would learn a new trick.

So I did.

I was right. My sturdy masculine walking shoes ramble along just fine bearing a single knot.