Shoelaces

There was a pair of sneakers I really liked that I wore for a many years. They were part brown suede (I like suede), with bright lime green highlights. Last year, I had to throw them away at the end of my stay in Germany because 1) I already had 2930572 times my weight in luggage to take back home and 2) the lovely European cobblestone streets had not only worn them flat, but had further started revealing layers of rubber that I didn't even realize could fit in that amount of sole.


Yes, they look shoddy, but they were years and years old. Comfortably old. Or maybe they look pristine to you. Wie gesagt, if it weren't for the conditions mentioned above, I'd still have them.
And yes, I have a picture of my old shoes, JUDGE ME.

At any rate, I was at Juggleville rehearsals yesterday, and in the show I'll be doing poi spinning (though more like the later pictures in the article, not the first one).

And the thought suddenly occurred to me only yesterday during practice:

AUGHHH!! Why didn't I harvest the shoelaces off my old shoes when I threw them away?!??

Shoelaces make very good, sturdy and inexpensive string for poi spinning. And those shoelaces were so neat. And I don't buy new shoes very often. And I love to recycle things for practical uses. And WHY ARE THEY SITTING IN A LANDFILL IN GERMANY NOW?

Perhaps subconsciously, I thought that some German garbage man might spot the cool lacing pattern and briefly think to himself, "Ach, was für tolle Schnürsenkel*." Which basically expresses a compliment to the shoelaces. Oh, what nifty shoelaces. And then he would carry on with his business.

Yeah, right. WHY DON'T I HAVE THEM I AM AN IDIOT.

*Native or expert German speakers, do you use Schnürsenkel for the word shoelaces? Schnürbände? Schnürriemen? The topic didn't exactly come up very often in Germany, and I'm not sure which one is most commonly used.