Two years ago, I order 30 pairs of socks in all different colors and patterns. I realized, finally, that I was down to a bare two or three pairs and I wasn’t even sure they were real pairs, but they were at least more or less the same color. Around the same time, I also bought a lot of underwear on the theory that we wouldn’t have to do laundry nearly as often if I didn’t run out of underwear. Oh, and I refilled Garry’s sock and underwear collection too.
Yesterday, Garry did laundry. My 30 pairs of socks have shrunk to about half a dozen pairs. I swear to you not only am I really careful about keeping pairs together, but Garry is passionate about matching them up and keeping them clean. Which isn’t always easy because I wear them as slippers and have been known to go outside in socks … not really a good thing to do.
Nonetheless, I realized no matter how much I didn’t want to face the crisis, I had to buy more socks. I found socks on Amazon — 12 pairs for $14.00 and they are all exactly the same. Because I know. We all know. Socks vanish. No matter how careful you are. No matter how hard you try to keep track of them, over time, attrition will chew at the edges until you have no more than a few days worth of socks in your drawer. You will search that drawer.
“Who took my socks?” you cry, but no answer will come to you. They are gone through the black hole in the universe (via your clothes dryer) into which all the single socks are eventually drawn. The mythical land or planet where a single sock can live forever. They are looking down on us and laughing. Because we persist in looking for them. Foolish humans.
Garry, despite my assurances that there is nothing more he can do, that socks will go missing regardless, is sure I’m accusing him of sock-napping. He does not yet understand. There is nothing anyone can do. There are greater forces at work here than mere humans can control.
So this time, I’m ordering 12 identical pairs. As each sock disappears, I can wear it with another lonely sock. Variety is not the spice of life when discussing socks.
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Categories: Cartoons, Home, Humor
MYSTICAL, MAGICAL SOCKS – Marilyn Armstrong 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Don’t worry. Trump has a plan for this, too!
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He’s going to build a wall between us and our dryers? To save us from socks?
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Oh, you read about it already?
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It’s a major part of his foreign policy. I’m sure the American people will embrace it.
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I don’t own a dryer. We are encouraged to hang our clothes outside in the sun and wind. And I try to hang pairs of socks together so I keep track of them. It seems to work – most of the time.
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If you live somewhere with plenty of sunshine, it helps. In Israel, for 9 months of the year, we hung the laundry out to try. Unfortunately, those three other months, it poured rain most days.
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Have you ever thought about how big a room or building we would need if all the missing socks met up in one place? I’m glad to know that this phenomenon is not just at our house. 🙂
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Oh, not hardly. Garry thinks I’m making it up, but as long as there have been clothes dryers, socks have been vanishing. A friend of mine once got pissed off and pulled the drum out of his dryer. There were all those socks behind it. So maybe they really are still in there … just hiding.
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We have the same problem here and there are no dogs at fault. Good idea to have them all the same. You’ll always have a match.
Leslie
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Although attrition still applies. Eventually, you find that there are fewer found and more lost … Keeps the sock makers in business. Maybe they are the ones at the bottom of the scheme.
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Good business model?
Leslie
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How I can relate. 3 men, 7 days a week and clean socks every day making 42 socks to sort, plus mine which are only a minority, although I mainly wear socks as do not like nylon stuff on my feet. Afterwards there is the pairing ceremony when they are dry. All spread out on the table and sort them out. They might mainly be black, but I discovered that black is not always black, it can be dark black, light black and medium black. The same with white, although that depends if they arrive in a different shade of white when they leave the machine. Roll on summer, less socks, although I stopped some time ago. I discovered that Mr. Swiss now attends to the sock sorting and pairing ceremony, I don’t think he trusts me with them.
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They all learn, eventually, a great truth. Socks are a force unto themselves. No power on earth can hold them!
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One possibility: you have dogs. Have you checked their hidey places? I know, unthinkable, but sometimes…
I think you’ve hit on the solution, all one color, all one style. My husband has taken to wearing those lovely puffy cotton socks that really do keep your feet warm, and they last forever. (And I’ve taken to borrowing forever) –I can get half a winter out of one pair, cut down to just above the ankle. and yeah, I wear them outside too. The cut off “sleeves’ I turn into wrist warmers (we are a caution, arent we) because the only thing worse than snow down the back is cold wind up the sleeve…they are also excellent for that bone spur on the wrist, the kind that messes with the mouse hand…
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It’s not the dogs. The laundry is in a a gated area, both during “collection” and “cleansing.” No, it’s a black hole in the universe located in the dryer somewhere outside out visual spectrum.
I have, after many long years, resigned myself to having to repurchase a full set of socks every couple of years. And may the Force be with us!
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Judy, the dogs were and are at the top of my suspects list. I’ve frequently spotted odd socks on the front lawn. The DOGS’ front lawn!! I’m not profiling them. I’m a fair man. But you know those furry kids. They’re all suspicious. You can’t trust them.
Judy, we could have a lineup with Bonnie and Gibbs….let’s see if we can get a visual ID. I know they’d all lawyer up. But we could clean this thing up. They all have long rap sheets.
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so funny and so true 🙂
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If anyone ever finds all those socks … wow. MILLIONS of homeless socks. Boggles the mind!
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If they disappeared during the washing process chances are, at least, they won’t smell bad.., maybe finding them won’t be so traumatic, or overwhelming?
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Have you ever actually found one that has gone missing? By the way, I finally got to the post office and got a padded mailer for your book. That’s progress!
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Yes and no.., usually far too late to be useful because I have thrown away the one that’s left.
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True. The few times the mate has appeared, it was years after the original separation, usually about 2 days after I gave up and threw the single one away.
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It. Is. Amazing.
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Maybe it’s a political movement among socks. They will soon be rioting for freedom for all socks everywhere!
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😀
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Just wear the hell out of them, killing them so there won’t be enough to gather in threatening groups?
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so funny
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Funny indeed. Until, one day, you really NEED a pair of respectable socks … and there are none remaining. Oh NO!
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You could be creative and glue the lint back onto your feet… 🙂
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OK Let’s examine the facts and look at it from another angle taking into consideration some commonly over looked details. you mustn’t be too hasty at blaming your dryer after all it’s just a machine. You put clothes into the thing, dry all the moisture from them and take every thing out again and whisk it away to your drawers or hangers. You notice that a couple of socks are missing their mates so you back track to the laundry area checking the floors on the way. You open the washing machine to see if you failed to load a couple things into the dryer and that’s a strong possibility as many mates go that way and it’s relief to find that all you did was leave a few things hidden in the washer.
BUT! there is one thing we don’t consider. Lets go back to the dryer. You are a careful user observing the rule of emptying the filter screen each time before you do a new load. But what are you cleaning from the screen.., yeah I know it looks like dust or lint.., and it is for the most part, but where did it come from? Now you’re starting to think right? It came from your clothes especially your socks and undies. These items lead a tough life putting up with extreme bouts of friction and wear. Tiny fragments of their little bodies rub off only to completely break away during wash cycle and completely separate finally in the dryer only to get caught in the filter screen as lint. Lint, Schmint that stuff is your sock in the end of it’s life cycle following its version of the old “Dust to Dust” saying. So you were diligent after all and put those socks into the washer, and then into the dryer where one or the other took its own life by disintegration. You unknowingly scrape their little bodies off the screen filter and throw them away.
I save my dryer lint in a little waste paper basket in hopes that it will be useful in the future for something more than just been a fire hazard. Maybe I could stuff a pillow, small toy or something?
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You could gift lint pillows to asthma sufferers against whom you hold a grudge to make their a misery. This is, I admit, a unique thought on a matter that has received a great deal of international attention. Lint … the corpses of our missing socks. Could it be? Then … is there a way to reanimate them back into useful life? My brain is alight with the possibilities! You are a GENIUS!
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Ben, as Harry Truman said, the buck stops here — with the dryer in the laundry room. There must be accountability. I’m not saying all dryers are bad. And, I’m not pointing fingers at the color of dryers.
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Start building wall! They are sock terrorists!
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We don’t need them in this country.
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Socks … right? Because clearly, we need walls. Lots of wall. That’s how Trump is going to solve the unemployment problem. Americans will build walls and become great again.
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Only if Trump can hire ALL the unemployed folks, in the US, to build those walls will he even approach solving the problem. Can I see some ID and proof of citizenship please?
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Garry and I had to go into Boston this morning. Traffic was pretty light, except for all the construction. Which is ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE. Every road on the east coast is under construction, being repaved, being widened, rebuilt or something. What we could use is something like the Roosevelt era ERA where they took all those unemployed guys and had them build bridges and dams, repair roads and all that usually neglected infrastructure stuff. Our roads and rails are crumbling. Our bridges are downright scary. There are a lot of unemployed people. We could put them to work. Fix stuff that NEEDS fixing. We could help solve the unemployment problem and REALLY make America great again. Or at least, have an America with better transportation. Just saying.
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Hallelujah!
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I’m wondering if I’m the only person ever who hasn’t lost a sock 🙂 Maybe my tumble dryer isn’t working correctly? Or maybe my socks disappear as pairs and I don’t notice…
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Or maybe, they are just waiting for the right time to strike … They are sneaky, you know. And they plan many years ahead.
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Dral, why in the wide, wide world of sports did Marilyn have to tackle this international nightmare with all the other plagues we face?
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Talk about opening a can of worms.
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