Tuesday, March 11, 2014

One Foot, Two Foot

What is the deal with socks?  I began the winter with seven pairs of black knee socks.  Seven pairs of black socks and I am down to three. 

Eight socks have succumbed to holes!  Now I admit, I’m hard on my socks.  I go sock-footed pretty much all day in the house, and then, of course, I wear them inside my shoes when I go out.  Still, why do they all get holes at once?  Three pairs of socks left, and, I’ll point out, seven days in the week.  Do I want to do extra loads of laundry for socks?  I do not.

I have my mother’s old darning egg which isn’t egg shaped but looks rather like a black mushroom.  I was enamored of it when I was four and five.  It was so big, and I thought it looked vaguely like a doll.  When I unearthed it after she died, I was surprised to find how small it was.  I co-opted it (unless you want it, Teddi) and took her darning cotton, too, which I imagine you’d be hard pressed to find these days, and I do know how to darn.  Still, I’m not darning all those yawning heels and toes.  Or, as a neighbor of mine used to say, "I will darn them by saying Darn them!  Darn them!” 

So here I am down to three pairs of socks.  There is a lone sock that sits in the dark by herself.  That makes three and a half pair with one lone sock waiting for one of a pair to die so it can have a new mate and happily parade around outside the drawer. 


Here is the single sock and the darning egg.
They are inherently uninteresting, so I
put them on the quilt I just finished.  Isn’t it pretty?

Now you may say, what’s the big deal?  Go to the store, Ann, and buy some socks. It’s not that easy.  Oh, no.  Sure, it may be easy for you because you have normal feet.  I, on the other hand, have long feet.  Long feet, long toes and a high arch.  A fellow in college -- when I ran around barefoot and didn’t worry about socks -- used to tell me, “You have the feet of a Grecian statue.”  When I finally made it to Greece, I saw statues with their long, long feet.  Imagine my surprise! I hadn’t thought it was my feet he was interested in. 

So the Grecian statues and I cannot just go buy socks.  After 50 years of feeling my feet jammed against a barrier all day, I discovered that there are extended toe socks.  That is Gold Toe’s polite way of saying “socks for big feet.”  They are wonderful!  They are wonderful, but you can only buy them at a Gold Toe store or on-line.  There aren’t any Gold Toe stores near me, and, yes, it would be easy enough for me to go on-line and order socks, but I have to actually DO it, and I keep putting it off.  Why?  Who knows?  Such procrastination means there are always a few dicey weeks between hoping I remember to put the washed clothes in the dryer and when the socks come flying through the mail and land on my feet.

And that Greek statue?  Put a sock on it.