Am I the only person in the entire world that loses socks?
I can go into a shop and buy six pairs of identical black socks, the family will wear them once, throw them in the washing machine, and out will come 12 socks with different patterns that have obviously never met each other.
I can also buy 12 blue socks and after the wash six will disappear altogether, and out will come a red one, a green one, two brown ones and a baby’s bootie. I used to blame mischievous ghosts when we lived in an old house, that took great joy in removing just one of a pair and stashing them under couches and under beds, to chuckle while we searched, or maybe we had mice that needed them to use for tiny doonas and dragged them down mouse holes.
I hoped things might change when we moved to a new house, but obviously the sock stealing ghosts moved with us as socks still kept disappearing. The only ones they didn’t steal were the ones that didn’t fit. You know them, made by some overseas country whose people must have very odd-shaped feet as their sock toes hang inches beyond your own and the ankles are tourniquet tight, cutting off circulation. We have a huge bag of orphan socks, which I sometimes tip out and rumble through hoping against hope that there will be a pair, but am usually unsuccessful.
The orphans still get used under work boots and gum boots round the garden. When it is necessary to have matched socks on occasions like weddings, funerals and Christmas gatherings, it’s off to the shop for new pairs of suitable colours, which are then locked away until the day lest they disappear.
I can’t be the only person who has this problem.
I am a reasonably capable, if not perfect, housewife and it is not carelessness that leads to this wholesale hosiery hijack. I despair.
My family believes me when I protest my innocence, but will Saint Peter, when I stand before him at the Pearly Gates? (You will pick me out easily as I will be the one wearing odd socks).
What will I do if he opens the ledger and a bundle of odd socks fall out? How will I hope to explain?
Surely I am not alone?