The Mating Habits of Socks

If you read yesterdays post on socks, you know that I spent a good chunk of time yesterday afternoon trying to help my lonely socks find their mates.  While I was whiling away time with the socks, I got to thinking and that is always a dangerous thing.

How is it that socks lose their mates?  What makes some socks stay with their mates for life, while others seem to wander off at any given chance?  Once lost, how frequently do socks find their mate again?

Here are my observations.  Socks lose their mate in a variety of ways, some head to the laundry room with their mate, but come out of the dryer without one.  We'll call those mates MIA.  Perhaps my washer or dryer eats them.  A more likely scenario is that one of the socks gets entangled in the affairs of other items in the machine, perhaps a pair of pants.  The wandering mate will only be found when that pair of pants is put on again (which if it is spring, the sock might not be seen again until fall).

Other socks go their separate ways before ever reaching the laundry room.  I can't tell you how often I will find one sock laying in the middle of the living room floor with no mate in site - strange!  Since all of my children have two feet, I'm not quite sure how this happens.

Lastly, there are the visiting socks.  Visiting socks are the ones that show up in your laundry, but belong to no one in your household.  These socks sometimes appear in pairs, but frequently not.

Now, once socks are separated, will they ever be reunited?  You would think that beautiful and colorful socks like these
would have no problem finding (and keeping) their mates, but it is not so. It seems as though in sock life, as in real life, attractiveness has nothing to do with the ability to find and keep a mate.

While I was playing match-maker yesterday, I found it difficult to ascertain at times which sock belonged to which mate.  You see not all pink (or blue or yellow or black...) socks are created equal.  As you see here, pink comes in a variety of shades and, of course, socks come in a variety of sizes.
White does not come in a variety of shades, but the variety of sizes and styles is seemingly endless.  Believe it or not, none of these socks found their mates yesterday :(
One last observation for you to ponder, it is far better to be a plain white sock than a pretty colored, striped sock. The reason being, in a pinch a plain white sock can choose a mate that somewhat resembles itself of the same size, all of those pretty socks in the first photo are stuck by themselves until their original mate comes home.

And the moral of this sad tale is - Barb has too much time on her hands!  Oh, if you want to see the happily reunited socks, scroll down to the sock post below to see the happy couples.

5 comments:

  1. Maybe some of those stray socks have strayed to say maybe one of those dragonfryes. I bet she has stray socks too, so maybe you can get together and make your own matches:) And have a nice visit while making those new matches. And as for colored socks not matching, you could always start a new trend. If jeans with holes can make a lot of money, imagine what unmatched socks can do.

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  2. Trudy,
    I like your ideas! Tina, how about a sock matching party :)

    Never thought of selling those little critters, but then what would I do when the mate finally showed up? I couldn't bear to break it to them that I sold their mate on E-bay!

    Barb

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  3. Barb, a sock maching party sound good but you would not want any of my socks.They are pretty icky! Your socks might have came for a visit but left in disgust! I do have to say that my theory is buy all the same socks aross the board.Boy socks and girl socks all in the same size & color and have community sock draws for the kids. So there really isn't many unmatching socks over here just unmatching in dinginess...complain and it is bare cold feet.No mercy.I'm not real good at governmemt terms (or spelling) ...would it be sock socialism or sock dictatorship?
    Actually,Lily has her own socks and Joel has been known to have a nice pink ruffle baby sock on one foot and a white sock on the other.You can tell I am a mom of many because a pink ruffly sock on my little boy doesn't bother me even in public.A sock is a sock.They all serve the same purpose...hid those unwashed tootsies!

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  4. Ah Tina, all parenting is dictatorship, benevolent dictatorship hopefully, but dictatorship nonetheless. We frequently remind our kids that our family is NOT a democracy :)

    As for the no socks at all, many of my kids would gladly go without socks 12 months out of the year. Me, being the overly concerned mom that I am, require socks when going outside to play in the snow :)

    Actually, I've come upon a new sock dilemma. My two older girls now "borrow" my socks! I have the most fuzzy warm socks in the house and they work really well for sliding around on the wood floors. Hmm, does this mean I should have only white generic socks as well?

    We don't have too much of a problem in the dinginess department because our socks get holes in them long before they get dingy. And tell me please, how socks get holes in them on the top of the sock???

    Wow, I have a lot to say about socks. Scary!

    Barb

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