Ok I know it’s a long standing joke to lose socks in the wash but seriously where the heck do they go? Is there some magic sock vortex that causes socks to disappear and reappear? It never fails each and every time I do laundry I will find at least one sock without a mate. I don’t find myself tossing out single socks often so the second one does usually appear at some point. So where did it go in between washes? I used to search for missing socks and could never find them. Now I just wait for them to come back on their own and somehow they always do.
I don’t get it, and it isn’t just socks that do this. A favorite shirt or some small item will disappear without warning and then weeks, months sometimes years later it reappears. It’s rarely found in a weird spot, not jammed behind a piece of furniture or anything it’s just suddenly where I know I’ve looked a million times or even where the item belongs.
I hate to lose things. I’m a very organized person and have a place where each thing belongs and I rarely neglect to put an item back where it belongs as soon as I’m done with it. I hate replacing things I have a vague recollection of having somewhere. Of course I haven’t quite trained my kids (or husband) to be so meticulous and things are bound to go missing but the sock thing really bugs me.
I think it’s because somehow I never seem to have enough socks. It’s not just because of the ones that go missing in the wash. It’s the ones that disappear from my drawer. Years ago my husband would steal my socks; if he ran out he would just take a pair from my drawer. I’m sure he must have noticed when he was running out of socks and could have either a) told me or b) run a load of wash himself but apparently that never occurred to him.
Instead what would happen is the next time I did laundry I would find a couple pairs of my socks stretched beyond recognition and no longer wearable or at least not by me. I don’t understand how a ladies size 7 sock was at all comfortable on a man with size 11 feet but that didn’t stop him. Eventually I stopped buying plain socks for myself and began wearing colorful patterned ones and he stopped stealing them.
For the past few years I haven’t had a problem now however my oldest daughter has started stealing mine. I found a couple of my pairs in her hamper this wash day. I know she has plenty of her own. They just don’t happen to find their way to her hamper as often as they should. They get left at friends after a sleepover, under her desk, behind her bed or stuffed in the bottom of her gym bag.
It is always just after the last load of laundry is in the washer and I’ve pressed start that she finds them. I would just add them in but once you press start on my washer it locks and you can’t open it until the wash cycle is complete. So they go in her hamper and by the time I have enough to make another full load she’s wearing socks with holes. Or that’s how it used to work. Now that her feet are almost the same size as mine she’s decided stealing mine is a better idea than keeping her room clean or wearing holey socks.
Between the dryer eating them and my family deciding my socks are up for grabs I’m going to end up with some awfully cold feet. My daughter is perfectly happy to wear any pattern sock so changing the type I wear isn’t going to help this time. Maybe I should put a lock on my sock drawer.
Nah, I’d probably lose the key.
