I hope my three or four readers will forgive my lapses in posting but I have been quite busy writing a novel. I will post some of it here one of these days. But in the mean time, here is my rant about lost socks.
What is it with women and socks? They can't seem to get along, as pairs anyway. I have a box full of unmatched socks. If there is ever a fashion trend where men wear different colored socks on each foot, I am ready.
Since I was tired of wearing pairs of socks of almost matching colors (gray and somewhat gray, dark blue and black, and so on), we decided to stock up on socks when we were in Paris.
Up into the swirling commercial maelstrom of La Defense we went, and into a clothing store that had hundreds of socks (of my size, too!) for sale. We bought three packages of three pairs of socks each.
"That should last me the year," I said optimistically,
"At least the winter," said my wife ominously.
Back home, I proudly filled my socks hamper with my new pairs and rid myself of the unmatched fellows which I marched into the trash bin as if they were prisoners condemned to the firing squad.
Soon there was an occasion for me to wear formal shoes (most of the time I wander around the house in a pair of clogs), and in celebration of my newly acquired hosiery, I donned a fresh pair of dark blue socks to match my jeans.
Another occasion came up, a lunch at a friend's house, and again I whipped out a spanking new pair of dark brown socks to match my pants.
Having no further engagements, I reverted back to my clogs and entrusted my two pairs of sock to the wash bin.
A couple of days later, I was quietly reading in bed, waiting peacefully for Mr. Sandman to come and sprinkle its magic on me so I could have my afternoon siesta, when into the room came my wife bearing (Oh, horror of horrors!) two unmatched socks: a brown one and a dark blue one.
"Now it starts," exclaimed she showing me the unpaired hosiery.
"Oh, no it doesn't," I said springing out of bed like a la fireman upon hearing the alarm bell.
"Where are you going?" she asked, as if it were a mystery what my intentions were upon seeing the sadness of the uncoupled socks.
"I will not let this stand! It is an outrage that upon the first wash these socks should already have lost their partner. I will find the other socks even if I have to take your washing machine, your dryer and your washroom apart!"
Off I went to the washroom to inspect the suspect machinery. I looked in the washing machine: nothing! I looked in the dryer: nothing! I inspected every bit of the washroom's floor, the clothes line, the table, the baskets: nothing!Remembering I had once found a lonely sock cowering under the garden bench, I retraced my steps from the washroom to the house, inspecting bushes, pathway, the garden bench, the rose bush, the outside clothes line: nothing! It was a mystery where the two missing socks could have gone.
Frustrated and fuming I went back into the house.
"I can't believe it. I simply cannot believe it!"
"What can't you believe, dear?" asked my nonplussed wife.
"Those socks have been out of my possession for less than a week and already they are unmatched. How can that happen?"
"Oh, don't worry about them. They'll show up," she said.
She spoke about the socks as if they were wayward dogs or cats that had fled the house and wandered out into the street.
"There is nothing for it," I threatened, "I am going back to my scheme of not putting socks into the bin to be washed and putting them into a bag in my closet to be washed by hand by me under close supervision and if necessary, armed guard."
"Tu exagére," she said. "Look, these things happen."
"I know they happen. The problem is in this house they happen too often!"
"But, you have plenty of socks. Why do you worry?"
"I worry because I will soon have plenty of socks...that do not match!"
"Look, I have three pairs of gloves, rather, three gloves from different pairs, and I do not worry about it."
"Well, perhaps we can go about with unmatched socks and gloves and we can start a trend. Maybe we can go to a store and ask for one each of a pair of socks and thus ask for a 50% discount."
And on and on it went. I will not keep you, dear reader, in suspense and tell you that days later one of the socks appeared. It was ragged and shriveled and looked like one of those fellows that have been on a multiple day drinking binge. Perhaps it had. Jerry Seinfeld had a routine in which he said that perhaps socks conspired with each other to "break out" of a washer or dryer much like convicts break out of prison. Not my socks. I think mine just wander off for no apparent reason.
Anyway, all of the above is to explain a strange phenomena I have observed not only in our household but in other households as well. I call it the "Let's Loose As Many Objects As We Can In One Day Syndrome"; not a very scientific name but very descriptive of the symptoms.
Now, before any of you of my three readers start calling me a chauvinist pig or misogynist or some such, let me say that my reasoning is supported scientifically, especially by a recent book with a spectacularly long title: "Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life".
The authors, one Sandra Aamodt and a man with an unfortunate name, Sam Wang, tell us something we already know (that the brains of men and women are different) and a lot of funny stuff that we suspected but did not know if it had any scientific basis.
This is not a book review so I will just comment on the thing I have been ranting about: why women constantly loose the car keys, their bag, their glasses, pens, earrings, and many other things, AMONG THEM MY SOCKS!
It seems that women have very poor short term memory (Dear, where is my mobile phone?) and very good long-term memory (The woman: "Augh! That's the woman you were flirting with at the wedding reception for Joe and Janet!" The man: "What? Joe and Janet got married ten years ago!").
While men are the opposite: we have great short term memory (that's why we can put back together the car exhaust manifold in reverse order of how we took it apart) and very poor long term memory (that is why we can never remember anniversaries, birthdays, or other dates for that matter).
Women store things in memory based on sentiment, men store things based on facts. To me, this clearly explains why I have a drawer full of unmatched socks. My wife throws things in the washer and dryer and forgets to double check for pairs of socks because she can't be bothered to remember what it is she put in the machines in the first place. AND, she certainly has no emotional attachment to my socks, at least not as much as I do.
Perhaps if I ask her to darn our initials on my socks she will become fond of them and will not let them go astray. Although I would look rather silly and pretentious with monogrammed socks.
