Sock Theory

Idea  Spark

A very good friend posted up an interesting question on Facebook, which got my mind out of neutral and heading forth on a magical mystery tour, viz:

“What is the acceptable length of time to hold on to an odd sock in your sock drawer before realising its partner will never be found?”

Clothing Pairs

Now there’s a curiosity to this perennial and almost worldwide sock dilemma, for the humble sock has probably got the highest “pair mortality” rate among all articles of clothing. Whilst gloves are most statistically nearest in terms of singularity, other things bought (and sold) in pairs – like shoes, pants, ear muffs, tights, trousers – never seem to suffer the same fate.

Incidentally, why do we call them “a pair” of pants, tights or trousers? They are clearly not “a pair” but are one only item.
“Are you wearing a pant today?” has to be a typical example of verbal pantagruelism. But I digress ...

Most gloves become widowed during outdoor excursion as we take one off in order to afford ourselves the dexterity of our fingers. Once home, they are safe and secure – like their culinary cousins, the oven gloves. Sensibly of course, the oven glove can be bought both singly and as a pair.

As with pants, we rarely take our socks off in the street which has to be why they are not often seen on pavements or at the roadside. Gloves, and less so these days handkerchiefs, are the commonest lost souls of the wayside. You can almost hear the faint and plaintive voice of the partnerless glove as you pass it by. “Help me,” it cries, ravaged by the elements and trampled underfoot.

Wash Hose

Now, for socks, the danger area has to be laundering, the weekly wash. We wear them as a pair; we take them off as a pair; and most times they go into the washing machine as a pair. And this is the point where Cosmic Intervention comes into play.

Rather like the light in the ‘fridge, once the door to the washing machine is shut who knows what strange alternative universe our everyday reality metamorphoses into? A wormhole in space, the rabbit hole in Wonderland – they have nothing on the deep mysteries of the drum of the washer.

For us, on the outside, it may seem a tangible reality because we can see clothing, shirts, socks and the odd pant – all presented there through the Perspex door, revolving before our very eyes.
Yet within - after the initial soaking, the lathering, the rotating this way and that – the cycle moves into another dimension. If we are still watching the drum and its contents through the apparent transparent nature of the door, we are already unaware of our minds being entranced. Our focus gets fuzzy and distant, our attention wanders into reverie. Whether we are present or not, by the time this phase of proceedings is reached we can bear no witness as to what is going on.
You know the quote – “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, has it made a sound?” This too is about bearing witness to reality. If a sock becomes lost in the washer and there’s no one around to hear, has it cried for help?

Once the spin cycle is over and the Cosmic Sentinel whispers “3-2-1 You’re back in the room,” we discover that with supernatural efficiency, dark forces have captured a sock.

Sub-Reality

Were we blissfully unaware earlier that the Erlking was stood on our shoulder, watching as we loaded our laundry into the machine. Did he chuckle under his breath as the garments of our soles were locked inside his lair? Did we have any cause to be grateful as he let many go, to be worn another time, and only retained one or two for his own satisfaction? Did we even ask whether he chose ones that had adorned our left foot rather than our right?

Or is ours the real life, and not just folk-lore or fantasy. It was not us in that maelstrom, after all; just some of our garments.

Yet they must be somewhere – surely?

Wistfully, with even a hint of romance, we might talk of the great sock-drawer in the sky, where each lonely item waits for its partner to be captured at some future washday and they might then be re-paired.

After Maths

Of course, in reality, do we ever again wear those single socks?

If we don’t then they will never get washed and have the chance to be re-paired with their long-lost buddies, their soul-mates. So we should always consider wearing the odd ones – and to hell with what people might think or say. Give them all a chance of repatriation.

Alternatively manufacturers should sell odd socks, and we should make the wearing of odd socks quite acceptably regular and normal – instead of being one of the taboos of our social mores.

There are many ways of overcoming the dilemma for the un-partnered socks – yet there is another thing to note about them ever getting back together again.

Every wearing, and every wash, will change the physical nature of the sock. The fibres will wear out and degrade and the colour, the dye will be altered and fade. For every wearing and wash that a pair of socks is apart, each will change in a different way. Very soon there will come a point when they will be no longer recognisable as a pair anyway. As a consequence in this forest of socks there may actually be none missing at all – yet our human perceptions deem it impossible to put all the pairs back together again.

Perhaps it is time to change our entire view about pairs of socks and realise that a sock is an individual.