85. The Mystery of the Missing Sock.

85 The Mystery of the missing sock

Don’t you hate it when you lose one sock?  It would be better if the two of them went walkabout then I would not have that constant reminder that there is something missing. You put them into the washing machine together and you remember pegging them on to the line together. If you are anything like me you like to see them pegged side by side on the line. After all they are partners and should stick together.  Then when it comes to folding all the laundry to put it away in the draws or cupboards one of those pesky foot covers has done a bunk and left it’s other half alone and lonely.

After double checking the laundry – maybe it never got to the clothes line – maybe it slipped down beside the washing machine drum or got left in the laundry basket – one starts looking in places you know from experience that they can get into. I remember once I found a small multi coloured sock of mine caught edge of a fitted sheet. Whether  it got caught there accidentally or whether it was hiding away from it partner after they had quarreled I am not in a position to judge but I only discovered it when I went to use that particular sheet quite some time latter. I have also, when I have had to dry my washing in the tumble dryer found them stuck to other clothes due to the static that the dryer seems to generate, and sometimes they like to shelter in the leg of a pair of trousers. Then I start looking  in all the  silly places, under the lounge chairs and behind the fridge.  

The deserted  partner is placed  on the dresser in the bedroom or somewhere else that “ I can find it when the other one turns up” and there it lays until someone  decides it is getting in the way and  moves it into a draw or something. Then I discover it one day and am so glad to think I have found it and go looking for its  partner again only to realize that this is not the runaway but the poor abandoned stay-at-home and so I consider throwing it away.  Of course being me I can’t do that, I have to find the scoundrel. Of  course I don’t spend every waking moment searching as my mother taught me that it was a waste of time to search for any things. She used to say “after a quick look, give up. If it is still around it will turn up and if it is lost, it is lost and no amount of searching will discover it”. Wise words from my Mom!

  No, I am not so poor that the lost of one sock, which of course is to all intend and purposes the same as losing the whole pair is a huge loss in my life but I really have a thing about it. Maybe it stems from the time when living in Africa with rather unreliable servants doing the laundry we thought that one missing sock meant that the laundry maid knew where the partner was and was just waiting for us to throw away our single sock so she could match them both together and give them a new home. Well no servants now so I know that the disappearance is entirely my own fault and hate to let it go.

A couple of weeks ago I lost one of my husband’s work socks, just thick black and hardwearing socks. I was so sure that I had pegged four of them on to the line but when it came to putting them away there were only three. I went through all the usual searches, my husband who thought it was a huge joke and as he has three pairs exactly the same he kept taking another matching one and depositing it in strategic places around the house so that I would find it and shout with glee “I’ve found the other sock” only to discover that this was not the missing one at all and we still only had five individual socks and not the six that were supposed to be there.

Well the week went by and after a day or two of ‘searching’ I just went into “eyes open’ mode. Not actively searching for the offender but keeping my eyes open for it. The next Monday there was of course more washing to be done and as I started to peg the first load out on the line I put my hand into the peg bag and felt something soft and fluffy. Yes, you guessed it. Now I have another place to add to my list of places that runaway socks hang out just to annoy me.

Is anyone else as crazy as me? Or am I alone in my madness?