Posted
May 9, 2015
Mental
Floss says about this holiday:
“Today
we honor the past, and we let go. It’s time to admit that one red
argyle sock has gone to washing machine heaven. Time to turn the
partner it left behind into a rag or a sock puppet, and buy a new
pair. It’s what it would have wanted.”
What
happens to our socks? Why do so many socks go missing?
In
addition to the socks that get lost outside of our homes—for
example, left behind at our friend's house, somehow, when we changed
from sneakers to sandals—most socks that go missing somewhere
inside the house really are still hanging around, waiting to be
found. They're under the bed, or folded up in a fitted sheet (having
static cling when everything first came out of the drier), or behind
the clothes hamper, or clinging with every bit of static cling they
can exert to the top of the drier's drum. Maybe the family pet has
made off with a few of them and either buried them or hidden them
somewhere we will never think to look. Even if we eventually find
some of these socks (hours, days, even years later), the OTHER sock
of the pair is likely to
be hard to find or already tossed!
An
awful lot of missing socks are hiding right there in the laundry
room. Appliance repairmen report that many socks are in the washer –
but they go over the tub and get stuck between
the inner tub and outer tub! Others are in the drier – having
fallen down between the drum in the front or rear, into the lower
part of the drier. Of course, still other socks find their way
between the washer or drier and the wall, or underneath the
appliances. A few might get sucked into the washer's drain pump and
go out with the rest of the wastewater.
Here
are some other ideas about where our socks go:
- They might be in another dimension—a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of cotton and wool, nylon and polyester. They might be taking a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of ankles, or knees, or even thighs.
- Google has shown me that there are (apparently) washer gremlins and sock monsters who live in driers; front-loading washers can open a magic portal to another land; our galaxy's central black hole is actually made of socks, so many have been lost over the years; and/or there is a sock heaven for good little socks.
In
all seriousness, there are things you can do to prevent losing socks,
like washing socks in a mesh garment bag.
And there are practical
things you can do, such as reorganizing your sock drawer (you may be
able to match a few up again that somehow got separated by load) or
of course by just embracing the style of wearing mismatched socks!
Also
on this date:
Plan
ahead:
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