Sunday, November 23, 2008

Reward!

Have you seen the missing half of these???

Socks of various sizes and shapes, were abouts last seen at a variety of different times. Some were last seen entering a washing machine while others were seen entering a laundry hamper and yet others were last seen on little feet. While not considered dangerous, they are considered elusive.

Where did these socks come from?

That would be my missing sock basket. Notice how full it is! Now I do confess that before I took this picture I put a whole bunch of socks in there and I ultimately matched some pairs. I kind of felt like I worked for the CCAA matching babies with families' dossiers. (For those of you not familiar with Chinese adoption, a department in China, the CCAA matches babies with waiting famlies)

I also made myself very happy. One more week without having to buy more socks. However I still have about 30-40 unmatched socks.

Seriously though, what's the deal with socks??? Is it just me/us? In September each child had about 12-15 pairs of socks. Now each child is lucky to have 6-8.

I literally carried the above assortment of socks in that basket from Tennessee this past May. Common sense tells me that if I haven't found its mate by now (after moving and unpacking all my worldly possessions) that I should probably just throw them away. But the Pollyanna in me keeps thinking they will turn up. But hey, look at them. Do I really want some of those socks to turn up? What possessed me someone to buy them anyway? That pink and blue argyle sock would be great at a sock hop, should any one of us be invited to one. If you look closely you can see a beige/brown and tan argyle sock buried under polka dots and stripes. Must have been my argyle phase, followed closely by the polka dot period.

But where, oh where, do all of these socks go? Other than the obvious after looking at the socks above (someone coveted our socks so much they just had to have them but managed to only get one sock) there are a number of theories.

1) One legged Aliens continually steal our socks because we have the coolest socks in the galaxy.

2) My laundry room has a black hole.
This theory is somewhat implausible only because my brother Kevin just pointed out to me this evening that time at a black hole becomes slower while time for those outside the black hole speeds up. (What can I say, he was a high school science teacher!) But then again, whenever I enter the laundry room to do the laundry time does seem to drag on. Okay, I retract the implausibility statement.

3) My children randomly throw away one sock to drive their mother to the brink of mental derangement.

4) They are behind the dryer.

Yeah, I know, the answer is obvious. Do you think if I get an alarm system I'll be able to keep those pesky aliens out?

13 comments:

tarita said...

Denise, maybe you have hit on something. A blog should be created for everyone to post their baskets of missing socks. And MAYBE, just MAYBE someone will find their msising socks in another's basket. I have had one of those baskets for years. THen this past April when we moved again I just tossed it. It hurt,because I know those missing socks are going to turn up somewhere. But I didn't see them in your basket:(

Jill from Killeny Glen said...

Denise! I thought I was the only one on this mystery adventure! I am QUITE SURE there is a RAVENOUS SOCK MONSTER that comes and eats the socks only to leave us wondering...where they could be????? Especially the pretty ones that go with a special outfit! UGH! I hate matching and folding socks! But, a necessary thing...I need to suck it up and DO IT! :)

Another thing...what is the statute of limitations on HOW LONG to keep the socks without matches in hopes of finding the match...curious minds want to know!!!?
Have a blessed day!
Jill

Cindi Campbell said...

I love the puppy dog one!! We have little ones that wear them unmatched :)
Cindi

Lorie said...

Well, you can always save them for 'crazy sock day' at school. Kaylie's was last Friday and mixing and matching odd socks is always a hit on crazy sock day.

And by the way, in our house we are convinced that the dryer just eats them every once in while, it just eats them up.

Mary, Martin, Maggie and Mickey said...

I think moms everywhere should start a new fashion trend -- kids can go to school in unmatched socks. The more unmatched, the cooler your kid's sense of fashion is. It's a movement everyone can join. Demand change now!

Brandy said...

There is a basket in our laundry room that holds these poor lonely socks too. It is worth it to keep them becauses I united a pair just this morning.

Keep hope alive.

April said...

this is why i refuse to buy anything other than white socks for my kids. that way, even if they don't technically match, they still match :-)

Kay Bratt said...

I had a dreaded red basket of these socks, too. It was a thorn in my side for over a year. I finally went through and threw away the unmatched a few weeks ago, after procrastinating way too long, and now my red basket has been started all over again!

Wuxi Mommy said...

I agree it has to be the aliens! Gosh, I only have one kiddo and our sock problem is already on the brink of being out-of-control. I wonder what I'm gonna do as our family grows!

Denise Grover Swank said...

Wow! Who knew I would have struck such a cord with this post??? I have to say that I like the idea of promoting wearing unmatching socks as cool. Maybe if we use reverse psychology it would work.

I find the baby socks to be that absolute worst to go missing since they are small and for a while I used a laundry bag to put all of Emma's socks into when I took them off her feet. But the laundry bag was either in the monster mountain of unfolded laundry, or somewhere in the laundry room so it didn't last long. I get points for the good idea, but lose points for follow through.

RamblingMother said...

they are probably between the washing basket in the washing machine and the outside hull of the machine. At least my brother found his after taking his machin apart for another reason. I suspect some of mine are in the towels attached by static cling. But since you have moved my bet would be in the washer.

Kristin said...

Gee, I have one of those missing sock baskets too! It drives me crazy to imagine where all those missing socks have disappeared to.

But then I find a stray under the couch, behind a toy, in a purse, behind the computer, or some other interesting place. At least I haven't found any in the refrgerator. That would worry me.

But like April, I buy my little ones mostly white socks so at least we can usually find a match. When they do wear colored ones, I try to take them off right after school so they don't get lost.

It hasn't worked.

By the way, I still haven't folded my laundry!

~Isabel said...

I think that we should ALL mail all of our missing/mismatched socks to Denise's house so she can sort them...and then mail them back to us. :))

I'm like Brandy, i have a basket that i keep near the dryer so the "offending" sock can be tossed in. Is it sad that i get all giddy when i match something from that basket? :)))