(54 years ago)

news&updates

Aug
14

socks to be you

(originally posted 12/9/2019)

 

Putting on a sock this morning I guess I pulled too hard or something because it ripped the bottom piece clean off. It looked like I had on an anklet and the world’s smallest leg warmer.

It wasn’t even that old. I guess I need to buy better socks or at least put them on a bit more gingerly.

The odd thing was the reaction of the other sock.

The angst that seemed to permeate the room as I sat on the edge of the bed.

I realize that it had always been part of a pair but I couldn’t put my finger on the source of its anguish. Was it scared it was going to share a similar fate, like I was some sort of wild-eyed, slavering sock murderer, or was it scared of being alone? Did it fear that now its compatriot was no longer that it would be tossed? Was it hoping that somewhere there was another sock that looked almost identical so it could once again be part of a pair or did it imagine a place where people dropped off single socks so that people with only one leg wouldn’t have to buy two?

I wonder if your sympathy for this sock is tied in any way to what it is made of.

I hope I don’t have any anti-acrylic readers, but these days it’s hard to tell. People keep their thoughts on polyester and nylon pretty much to themselves.

That doesn’t mean its right.

You know exactly what I mean and don’t pretend you don’t.

A sock is a sock and I hope that it doesn’t need to be wool or a cotton blend for you to accept it.

Don’t get me started on the color of the sock. I know you have your prejudices but let’s get one thing perfectly clear; black socks are not lazy.

If anything black and brown socks work harder than any other color. Show me a busy workplace and I will show you dark socks. Ironic isn’t it, white collar jobs wear blue socks and blue collar wear white socks. I believe the true purpose of literature is to tackle the tough topics and allow the reader to have powerful epiphanies.

Unless I miss my guess, you just had one.

And not to digress too much, but is there anything more loathsome than someone who dresses very conservatively but sports ‘crazy’ socks? Purposely crossing and uncrossing their legs at the meeting so everyone can get a peek at their ‘wild’ socks, hoping everyone is thinking to themselves “That guys isn’t as square as I thought he was.” We’re not.

Fuck you and your bright yellow SpongeBob socks.

I realize that it was only a few paragraphs ago where I was waxing poetic about the noble role of literature in a society, and I apologize for the use of profanity, but those guys just make me want to punch them right in their cakehole.

What I really feel bad for is taking away the spotlight from the single sock that started this story off on such a positive foot.

Wow, I just walked right into that pun.

Shit, there was another one.

If you took time lapse photography of where people wore their socks from one generation to the next, as fashions come and go, the height would bounce from the ankle up to the knee and then back down again. Up and down, up and down. Shorts seem to have an inverse relationship to socks, there is always a fixed amount of leg showing. I wonder if someone from MIT has ever created a mathematical formula for this.

You just had another epiphany didn’t you?

The truly odd thing is that you read the sentence “The odd thing was the reaction of the other sock” and kept reading. Remember the feeling you had when the premise really sunk in? “He’s anthropomorphizing a sock… wow.”

And now you’ve had two epiphanies as a result. Just goes to show you.

 

“My socks DO match. They’re the same thickness.”

-Steven Wright

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