The Missed Loop

Leye - Every other Wednesday

Photo by Ed Yourdon

There are few things that annoy me, fewer that really get me going.  One of those that tear at the nerves of my self control, like an obsessive compulsive walking down a row of cars whose drivers have never learnt how to parallel park, is the missed loop. Yes, the missed loop.

I was going to take a picture to show real-life evidence of this, but I thought it unwise to walk behind a person, get close, bend down low to the height of their waist and seemingly point my phone at their bum.

But why o why do people miss out that loop? You know the one. Rear, right, just after the middle loop or loops, and just before the right, side loop. I’m guessing it has to do with right-handedness. Maybe left handed people will miss out the rear, left loop just after the rear middle loop or loops and just before the left, side loop.

Ever since I started noticing the missed loop, I now see them everyday, multiple times a day. I guess I’ve subconsciously developed a heightened awareness for them. My brain is constantly seeking them out. Searching for guilty parties.

I have once missed out the loop myself. No one noticed, or they did but it didn’t bother them enough to tell me to loop up properly, but when later at home I undressed, and pulling out the aggrieved belt I noticed my sin, I swore never to be so insensitive ever again. Imagine all the OCD folk I could have damaged through the course of the day.

This then is my real, real, annoyance. Do people not notice they have left out a loop, or do they not bother once they do? And when they get home and they discover their error, do they not then take steps to ensure it never happens again? Steps like feeling each loop before guiding the leather through it and then feeling along the looped up belt and counting? Is this too much to do? Maybe the answer is that some people just don’t care.

Now, I do not hold the people accountable alone. I also blame the trouser makers. Surely, in the centuries of trouser making, the issue of the missed loop should have become known to them. And what have they done about it? Nothing. Nada. They don’t give a loop. But this cannot be allowed to continue. Let me offer a solution:

If the loop is oft missed, then leave it out. It is a redundant appendage. Do away with it. One less loop will not start a war. And think of all the money that will be saved. It might be one single loop in a single trouser, but multiply that by the millions and millions of trousers made and to be made and then we’re talking some serious ka-ching. Think of those poor kids in sweat shops, painstakingly sewing belt loops that will never be used. Save the money, bin the missed loop.

But, wait. That would make one less loop on one side of the rear of the trouser. No. No. No, no, no, no, no! No. You cannot have more loops on one side than the other. No. Symmetry is everything. People, learn to loop up right!