I spent 30 minutes of my life sorting my sock drawers recently. That’s correct, drawers plural. I’m not a man who tends to put a lot of thought into his hosiery. In fact it’s pretty much just my foot that goes into them.
But at the start of the new year I had a realisation. My socks were a microcosm of my life. Which is an entirely depressing statement to be as true as it is.
Have the courage to overthrow the toe-warming tyranny of the plain black dress sock.
My life is quite chaotic – there’s always something happening or some task that I feel I should be doing. This has helped me achieve things in my life I never would have thought possible, and meet some fantastic people, whether it be trying out softball, giving comedy a go or daring to ask famous people for a favour.
But because I don’t have a lot of down time, the time when I am at home can sometimes be a bit lazy. And because of that, certain tasks which if done a little at a time would be very easy to keep on top of can sometimes instead overwhelm me. Which brings us back to the socks.
I used to spend maybe five minutes a day trying to solve my sock dilemma. Finding clean ones, then finding the matching partner. Why this is necessary I’m not sure – after all if we paired off people in the same way we do hosiery, insisting they be identical, there’d be uproar! And I’d definitely be taking myself out of the dating scene.
Also for clarification I’m not talking the comedy cliché of the dryer eating socks. That is, the tumble dryer devouring my socks, and not mutant socks with an appetite for white goods. The latter would very much not be a trope. And also require a hyphen. There you go, levity and a punctuation lesson. You’re welcome.
I’ve got a lot of half-matching socks, where I’ve bought the same brand, but the font has been changed, or the logo is slightly bigger so they don’t match perfectly. Because sock companies seem to get a massive kick from messing around with those who like things a certain way.
So I solved this problem. I threw away the old, worn out socks, the ones with holes in, the ones that look like they’ve been used to rub down a prize-winning mare, or the ones so old they practically stand on their own. I was ruthless. This was a cull, for the good of the herd.
So in theory each morning I’ll get up and no longer need to worry about finding a fresh pair. The sniff test is a thing of the past. Now I can grab my socks and put them on the same as everyone else. Whilst being filmed on the internet for money.
Craig's Ivory Soapbox 