Tales of the Missing Socks

 Stella: Do you know how sometimes socks just seem to disappear? Over time you will end up with half a dozen unmatched socks and wonder what ever happened to their mate. You'll give up trying to ever find them and just go out and purchase a new package of socks. Fresh, white, clean and all matching. Some people will say that the washing machine is to blame for the missing socks. Or maybe it's the dryer's fault. But in our house it is something much, much worse....

I discovered this mysterious sock eater myself. It was an ordinary day, not unlike the one before it. But I had come to notice that after a few weeks of working out regularly, I was rotating only 5 pairs of gym socks. What had happened to all of my gym socks??? My cute, white footies with the pink trim, that indicated they belonged to me and should not be confused with Bess's blue trimmed socks, were disappearing one by one. I realize that not everyone notices when their socks mysteriously disappear, but since I was in dire need of clean socks to wear during my sweat dripping workouts, it was obvious to me that something was happening. Something that had probably been going on long before I ever took note of it....

You see, when I do my laundry and there is a sock without a match I will lay it above my sock drawer and wait for it's sole mate to return. I had only 4 socks waiting that day, but it had been quite some time without making any matches and I was worried that all of my wash had cycled already. It is quite a joyous victory when you are able to find the missing mate, and perhaps I do get a little carried away in making sure that no one is left behind. And then suddenly, I had an idea. Perhaps my mother's laundry had become intertwined with mine and she had unknowingly collected a few of my socks and was thinking the exact same thing as me! She was probably saving them atop her dresser as well, just waiting for the mate to return. It was a light bulb going off inside my head as I grabbed my 4 lonely, single socks and headed for my mother's dresser.

It was there that things took a turn for the worse. What had started as only 4 lonely, single socks had now multiplied immensely. My mind was baffled as I began to pull sock after sock after sock out of her drawer. There were no matched socks nicely stuffed into balls, which would mean that there were 2 socks stuck together to be worn as a pair. Instead there lay 70 unmatched socks all shoved into one drawer. All along I had blamed the washing machine, the dryer, The Man Child's horrible laundry baskets piled up with a month's worth of washing, but it was Bess The Sock Hoarder the whole time.

Baffled at this discovery I started digging for more. Each drawer had more and more unmatched socks. It was evident that the Sock Hoarder had been at this for some time. There were unmatched socks of every kind, but I mostly just noticed the white footsies with the pink trim. My anxiety began to rise as I peeked inside The Computer Man's drawer. He is notorious for never wearing socks that match, (as well as TMC and Loki.) He has also been known to wear socks with holes in the toes as he thinks it is funny to wiggle the toes at you through the peep hole. So strange... But not as strange as the overwhelming amount of unmatched socks hidden deep within my mother's bureau.

It was lunchtime now, but I was too shocked to eat. I could not leave this insanity the way it was. So I began to pair up the socks. It took quite some time to properly select the correct mate for each one, but it had to be done.

I left her room feeling triumphant. I now had 15 pairs of my socks back in my hands. And I left Bess with even more in her drawer. At the end of it, there were only 6 socks that did not appear to have an immediate matches, (although I will wait to see if I can find them through the next wash cycle. I like to hang on to that small hope that they are still out there somewhere...)

But it was a only small victory for the day.. The Sock Hoarder is still amongst us. She is bound to strike again at any moment... Every time she goes near the laundry I will be frightful that she will just be secretly collecting unmatched socks all over again. I am not sure what measures to take now to protect the innocent footwear who get thrown into this mess, but I will have to confront Bess about this. I will have to put my foot down.

If you've ever loved somebody, put your hands up!