It’s the last day of FUFebruary, and we can see the end of the tunnel! So let’s have a funny story.

Many years ago when life was simple, Rich was in the living room lacing up some boots. I was just casually sitting in his vicinity, watching him and noting how nice his forearms looked (like ya do).

He started talking about knot tying in general. He’s an Eagle Scout, so he knew a bit about knots and rope. I don’t know crap about them, so was relatively intrigued.

He was in full on TED Talk mode, as he worked these laces up the jump boots. Suede elbow patches on his tweed jacket kind of intensity about how to tie a good knot.

He finished lacing the boot and started to tie the square knot before the bow.

“Now, I have this knot I created. It works a lot better than most knots. I call it a Stryker Knot …”

I stared at him. He had just tied a double overhand knot, which Wikipedia says “is simply a logical extension of the regular overhand knot, made with one additional pass.” That’s it. And he had planted a flag in this knot with his last name in it.

I threw my head back in laughter and cackled like a witch. His mouth fell open in shock. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even speak. Eventually, I regained my composure.

“Baby, that’s not even a surgeon’s knot. It’s the first half of a surgeon’s knot. You didn’t invent it. People been tying that knot for thousands of years. This is the sweetest and funniest thing I’ve ever experienced in our entire relationship.”

From that moment on, the Stryker Knot became a running joke for us. I would bring it up any time we had to lash poles to the roof rack or wrap Christmas packages.

“Do you think we should use a Stryker Knot?”
”SHUT UP!”

And now I’m gifting it to you all. Feel free to label anything as a Stryker.