Where the socks are

Laundry is an every day, every night thing around here. It's a job that's never done -- and when it is, then one of the kids comes down with their hamper, or Thomas shows up with everything that's been on his dorm room floor for two weeks.
I'm pretty used to it, and the kids will do their own laundry most of the time, but there's one thing that brings it all to a dead stop. Socks.

I did laundry today, and decided to wash our bedspread and sheets,then put them on the line in back to dry. It was a nice, warm, breezy day, so I figured they'd dry pretty quickly. This was also date night, where Dan and I go out to dinner without the kids, while they're at youth group. We got ready to head out, and I asked Dan if I should take the bedding in, because it was cloudy out. "Nope," says he, "we've got time."

Except in the middle of dinner, it started to rain. Had to run home and take it all in. In order to get it in the dryer, we had to take out a load of, of course, socks, because no one ever wants to match the socks up. Since we didn't have any bedding on the bed, I threw all the socks down and started matching them up. It's not an easy job around here, because I'm the only one who doesnt wear white socks, with the exception of two pairs of Denver Broncos socks.

Of course, with the weird sock fixation around here, I know that the footies with no ankle are all Thomas', the ones that are ankle high are Seth's, and Dan gets the over the calf socks. Jill has a few footies with logos on them, but mostly just steals my socks, which are of all different colors, with several pair of knit white amongs them - just to make them easy to find.

Of course, when I was done matching up this load of socks, I had a few leftovers, so I went to go get the sock basket, where the spares are kept. This is an oval woven basket that holds all the odd socks till I find their match. The only problem is that sometimes I don't find the match. Like, I think I have some socks in their that Seth wore when he was 8 or 9.

He'll be 14 next month. What can I say? I'm an optimist.

So when I was done matching up all the socks, I wondered just how many odd socks I had. After counting them up, I found that I had 21 footies, six colored socks (or socks of color, to be politically correct), 23 over the calf socks (including six men's church socks, most of which were likely worn only once, because they belonged to Seth, and he wears jeans to church - on a good day), and two Broncos socks. That makes 52 socks: one for every week of the year.

I figure at this rate, if we stay in this house till we retire, we won't need to buy socks for the rest of our lives. We should be set on footwear, even if it's Broncos socks and blue and white Hello Kitty anklets, because who looks at your socks anyway? And in reality, I'm usually barefoot anyway. If the kids ever move out, we'll probably even find a match or two, which would be even better.

Or if we decide that matching is mandatory, and we're in a bind, I could go to wearing panty hose, or some unmistakeable stockings like
these wonderful red, white and blue vintage ones from finefindings, on ebay. Maybe I should invite her over to my house, to find me some fine socks.