The Theory of the Disappearing Sock!

The sixty four thousand dollar question is not how to achieve world peace or who really is going to come out ahead on Justified on the last episode next week. But the big question is what happens to one of every pair of socks that gets brought through the front door.

 Can the “other sock” phenomenon be blamed upon the drier which must have a voracious appetite for socks?

Maybe so.

But it does seem strange that it only eats one at a time, and never, ever the same kind twice in a row.

Is it possible that we have a one legged ghost in our house? I haven’t heard a peg legged pirate stomping around at night but then maybe he’s a real quiet ghost.

Or does one of them crawl out of the dirty clothes basket to run away from home since it doesn’t want to be an identical twin? Maybe the poor thing feels bad about living the life of a sock looking exactly like the one of the other foot. Or maybe it depresses the poor thing because it’s been a left foot sock when it knows it was born to be a right foot sock its whole life?

Actually, I think the manufacturers make one sock out of that stuff that will outlast the Rock of Gibraltar. It will endure crime, grime and athlete’s foot. It will be around for the great grandchildren to inherit and we can rest in peace that something from our generation will be passed on from generation to generation.

However, the other sock is made of a secret fiber that is way above my classification to understand. It looks like the other one. It is attached to the other one with the same little plastic gizmo that would take an act of congress to detach. It’s been really close to the bionic sock of the century since the day it was created. It’s impossible to tell it from the one that our great grandson will inherit in the future.

However when it is time to wash the socks, presto! The bionic sock withstands the detergent, agitation and water all at the same time. But this new secret fiber disappears in the washer!

What we need to do is have a swap meet? We can take the “good” socks that survive the test of washing and drying to the swap meet to trade with other folks that might have one like it.

That way we will get a pair that will last through eighteen lifetimes and half of eternity.

When they dig up the remains of this age, the socks will be the only thing left of the whole civilization.

So I’ll trade one white tube sock with purple rings around the top for one white tube sock with no color around the top. I’ll trade a black crew sock with green stitching on the toe for a brown crew sock with a four and a half inch top.

And we’ll all go home happy with socks that will never, ever disappear again!!