Marla’s Journey

I’ve concluded that it will be the socks that do me in completely. I have been having visions of me, sitting in the middle of my living room, with nothing around me but hundreds and hundreds of mis-matched socks, simply shaking my head. It’s not a happy vision.

I am a fairly smart woman, I can figure percentages in my head, have read Shakespeare and Steinbeck, and can put together a mean beef stroganoff with homemade noodles. I CANNOT, however, understand how I can put 9 pairs of socks in the laundry hamper and by the time they have been washed, hung to dry, fluffed for 5 minutes in the dryer and put in the hamper to be folded, 3 of the socks are missing!! Not even 3 pair, just 3 individual socks!! UUGHH!

I have a giant wipey box FULL of lost socks, and the other day, sat down to “match them up”. Because, if you had a pair, and now have a BUNCH of singles, SURELY some of them will match, right??!! Most of them should, RIGHT??!! WRONG!!!! 4 pair, and approximately 324 individual socks that DO.NOT.MATCH. (Maybe not 324, but A LOT!!) I just do not understand how this is physically possible. AT.ALL.

I have concluded that the main problem is that there are 2 sets of 2 pair of similarily sized feet in this house. The first set are the Norman/Thomas set. These are BIG feet – sizes 13 and 15 respectively. So large, they require extended size socks (I had NO idea these even existed til I married Norman.) The other set are 2 pair of little boy feet, one slightly shorter and chunkier than the other, but still wearing the same size socks. I have, over the years, purchased a huge variety of sock brands, which all have different print, lengths, seams, etc. The problem is that, since there are SO many different kinds, you can’t match up the odd ones for a pair, so I am left with a jillion socks I can do NOTHING with – we have plenty of sock bean bags and puppets, thank you very much.

This sock issue has been taking up so much brain space this week (why, I do not know!) that I actually now have a sock fantasy that I am determined to live out. I am going to share this with you, cause that’s what I do here! I have decided that I am going to use some of my HARD earned Christmas tips this year to buy socks. Not just more, but the perfect Sock Solution. Each boy in the house will have a particular style/type/brand. NO other socks, just that one kind. Then, all I have to do is remember who’s is who’s and if they get separated, VOILA, they will STILL work with another odd sock!!! GENUIS, I tell you!! Sheer GENUIS!!

It feels quite wasteful and extravagant to consciously decide to just THROW OUT 97 (approximately) pairs and parts of pairs of socks, all for the sake of my convenience, but at this rate, with the hours spent on this problem, I will never get around to writing the Great American Novel, solving the big socio-economic issues of the day, or even folding the rest of the household’s clothes, so I am considering it an investment in the well-being of my family.

That’s all for tonight. I look forward to having sweet dreams tonight of perfectly matched white socks, a basket over here with Hanes, over here with Fruit of the Loom, Circo front and center, and Joe Boxer in the back. It really doesn’t take much to excite and entertain me these days, does it?