January 13, 2009 

omen have one of the most interesting jobs in the world. Just being a woman. Who else would be presented with a job  such as restringing tennis shoes, with the 3 of the 4 aglets missing, at 5 am, with very blurry eyes and 3 cats trying to attack the strings. What is an 'aglet' you say? It sounds really mysterious, but...

An aglet is a small plastic or metal sheath typically found on the ends of shoelaces, cords and drawstrings. Aglets keep the fibers from unraveling, and their firmness and narrow profile make them easier to hold and feed through the eyelets, lugs or other lacing guides of the lace or cord (supposedly).

The word "aglet" comes from Old French "aguillette", which is the diminutive of "aguille" (or "aiguilee"), meaning "needle". This in turn comes from "acus", the original Latin word for needle. An aglet is thus like a small "needle" at the end of a cord.

Aglets today are most often made of clear plastic, but in times past aglets were made of metal, glass, or stone. Many were highly ornamental, and made of precious metals such as silver. Before the invention of buttons, they were used on the ends of ribbons to fasten clothing together. Sometimes they would be formed into small figures. Shakespeare calls this type of figure an "aglet baby" in The Taming of the Shrew. 

For a time during the Great Depression aglets were made out of paper and glue. An aglet can be fashioned out of adhesive tape, wax, resin, glue, thread, heat shrink or metal tubing, or by simply knotting or melting the end of a lace or cord.

There is a law about aglets. I believe this law is akin to the "Murphy's Law" law, only less severe. The "Aglet Law" is... when you are in a rush, when the shoes are freshly washed... the aglets will be missing or really frayed. When the aglets are as frayed as they could possibly be, the law also indicates that the shoe will have more places to have holes to string them than the average shoe. The holes will also be smaller than the average shoe usually has.... The hole placement will also be as complicated as possible. Which means after you get a hard won string though a hole, you notice you have to pull it back out as you skipped some strange 'deke' the string is supposed to take.  All of the above was applicable this morning. Thankfully, I have dealt with boy's shoes more than a couple times, so I immediately went for my pair of mosquito hemostats, as I have found over the years they are the only thing to work to get those frayed out strings though those holes which seem to shrink in the wash. It is use # 735 for these handy little instruments.