Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Today's Lesson: Children's socks were created to frustrate parents.

As every adult knows, the laundry dryer eats socks. You put two matching socks in and only one of them comes out. Somewhere in between pushing the start button and the buzzer letting you know that you have clothing to fold, Sock Gnomes open a secret door in the dryer and collect their weekly sock harvest.

As an adult, this is a bit frustrating and usually results in having one extra sock left over after matching all the other socks with their mates. The lonely widow sock is left by itself, waiting for a day when the Sock Gnomes will steal another sock's mate, at which point two widowed socks can become a new pair for a while.

This level of frustration is nothing though compared to the insanity that arises when you toss two small children into the mix. It turns out that the manufacturers of children's socks are secretly in league with the Sock Gnomes to drive parents insane! Children's sock manufacturers actively work so that no two pairs of kids socks look the same and the Sock Gnomes increase the insanity by only trying to collect one of each sock design.

Currently the count is 20 socks (yes, I counted them). Right now there are 20 tiny toddler and first grader socks sitting on the couch, each one of them looking completely different from the other 19!

I know what some of you are thinking, "John, just put two different socks on them and it will be fine. Their shoes will cover them up anyways." Having already made this mistake once, and only once, I caution against it. I wasn't aware but the 2nd Law of Parenting states that for every parent who sees this as a solution, there is an equal and opposite parent who will not. Trust me, it is better for your well being if you simply avoid this path all together.

I intend to solve this problem after work today, new plain white socks for everyone! I'll be sure to let you know how long it takes for the Sock Gnomes and evil Socking Conglomerate to unravel this attempted solution of mine.

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