The nation faces a grave danger — a force so overwhelming in strength, so unabashed in its heinous attempts to destroy that it might just defeat us. A statement has been issued declaring a national state of emergency regarding a single foe: pre-tied bow ties.

The statement, issued from the desk of the White House, reads as follows: “These things, dare I even call them creatures, have begun to haunt the floors of homecoming dances and proms throughout the country, and, God forbid, maybe even around the world. If our math is correct, we don’t have much time before they’ve monopolized the industry— they have taken advantage of any and all too lazy to spend five minutes on Youtube learning how to tie a real bow tie. What are we to do? Be doomed to ill-fated lifetimes of mediocre fashion?”

Recently, reports which indicate self-tie bow ties being temporarily possessed by the spirits of long disposed of pre-tied bow ties have been surfacing. Just last week, a member of the Saint Louis community was getting dressed for a family dinner at Truffles (he planned to order the cheeseburger), and as he was adjusting his bow to be just so, the loops sealed—and held the tie flat against his collar.

The victim, who wishes to remain nameless so as to avoid any further trouble with his apparently anarchistic ensorcelled accessories, said this of the harrowing attack: “I used to have this floral bow tie—pre-tied when I was seven or eight, nothing all that special, but my parents thought it’d look cute on me for our family pictures in Paris. Well, when we left our hotel to meet our photographer, an old man with beautiful coattails, a pristinely white dress shirt, and this exquisite bow tie looked at me, and shouted after my parents. ‘Get that boy a real bow tie,’ he said, ‘might as well throw that hunk of junk in the Seine where it belongs.’ My parents shrugged it off, but I was mortified by my style blunder. Me, a fashion-conscious toddler. How could I have made such a mistake? So, when we’d finished taking our pictures, I unhooked it and tossed it in the river. My dad loved the photos we took though and insisted on hanging one family portrait in each of our rooms. I can’t imagine how much he paid for those, but I guess he’d saved enough by not splurging on a real bow tie for me. Would that make up the deficit? I’m not sure; I have a sort of skewed sense of monetary values. Anyway, he hung one of them up in my room.”

He paused, visibly upset before continuing, “Well, when I was erm, well, attacked the other night, the corner of that picture caught my eye just as my beloved bow tie, Benjamin—I name them—was transformed into an affront to all that is fashionable in this world, and, I…I saw myself, but the tie wasn’t in the picture. It must have crawled from the portrait and taken over Benjamin’s body, like it wanted revenge or something.”

These beasts, unholy—literally, they don’t have loopholes—are a terror that we must be aware of, no matter the time or place. Go to your closet right now. Find your bow ties. Sprinkle them with the dust of an old boutonniere—it’s the only preventative measure Bill Nye has found. This should protect them, but be wary of past pre-tied spirits. They roam, wild vagabonds subject to no law, through the bass-blared gym floors of high school dances, dwell in the pockets of freshly-pressed shirts, sleep in the soles of your shoes watching, waiting for their chance to maim your self-tied pals.