Suzanne's Journal

12.07.01
I got to work yesterday and realized my socks didn't match. I mean, they matched what I was wearing, but they didn't match each other. They were both brown, but one was smooth, while the other had a brown-on-brown diamond pattern. This is what you get for being a considerate spouse, and letting your husband sleep peacefully while you rummage around in the sock drawer in the dark and then go to work dressed like some kind of gypsy waif. So I get to work, and my friend Jon sends this helpful email to my entire department:

Sorry to interrupt, but if you have a moment, you must check out Suzanne's socks.

So I spent the rest of the day showing my coworkers my non-matching socks. Today, Jon, Lori, Janice, and Claudia have shown up wearing blatantly non-matching socks, claiming I started a trend. Janice just came by to show me, noting "And I have another pair just like this at home!"

Alas, I seem to have lost the mates to each of the mismatched pair I wore yesterday. The eternal mystery.

A quick glimpse at the Internet shows an alarming number of sites devoted to sock disappearance: "The Island of Lost Socks," "The Land of Lost Socks," "The Sex Life of Socks," "The Tunnelling Theory of Sock Disappearance," "The Secrets of the Washing Machine Triangle -- Exposed," "Sock Math, or, Tales from the Dryer."

Napoleon's Socks notes that a pair of black silk socks, worn by Napoleon himself, were purchased at auction by Britain's Bata Shoe Museum for $4545. Astounding that they both managed to survive this long together, if you think about it.

The Bureau of Missing Socks bills itself as "the first organization solely devoted to solving the question of what happens to missing single socks. It explores all aspects of the phenomena including the occult, conspiracy theories, and extraterrestrial. We offer support for the matching sock deprived, and catalog, research, index and document all extant material related to socks since the dawn of the shoe."

Someone asked the Usenet Oracle "Where do socks go when the dryer eats them? Is it the same place you go when you're put on "hold"? Can you get there by Amtrak? Will we find Jimmy Hoffa there? How about L. Ron Hubbard? Rod Serling? Elvis?" The Oracle answered:

Unfortunately, socks do not go to the same place as the persons you mentioned. Disappearing socks are actually sacrificed to various entelechies, depending on who their owner is. Children's socks are sent to The Being Who Keeps Mom From Finding Out, while college students' socks usually go to the God Of Partial Credit. Single Adults' socks usually go to The Creature Who Finds Perfect Partners, and married adults' are usually credited toward their kids' accounts. Jimmy Hoffa, L. Ron Hubbard, Elvis, and Rod Serling are playing bridge on the 8th-10th dimensions, in case you're curious. You owe the Oracle a package of tube socks.

Writer and mother Julie Herron notes with alarm:

The proud few that make it through the maddening maze of bestial machines are being swallowed up in the cracks of footboards and sofa cushions, wherever laundry is folded in homes across the nation. In the smoky atmosphere of our earth, in that layer of gasses just beyond our breathing air, these angry young socks are swirling, spitting, smoldering; swizzling around and around, forming a gigundous sock ball that�s approximately the size of our sun. Growing daily, the sock ball stretches and belches under the strain of all the socks joining the mass, every day, every hour; looming just above us, threatening to explode.

Socknitters, a mailing list for anyone interested in knitting socks by hand, offers a Museum of Odd Socks, featuring some truly exquisite, but, alas, one-of-a-kind handknit beauties. The commentary reminds us that some socks are single by choice:

When Missouri artist Rita Williams ran out of her own handspun yarn before making the mate to this beautiful gray sock, did she give in to temptation and buy commercial yarn? No! She refused to compromise and offers us "Unspun Hero" as a reminder to remain true to yourself...even if it means having one cold foot.

Some British quantum physicists have a more obtuse explanation:

Quantum theorists explain it all by a generalised exclusion principle --- it is impossible for two socks to be in the same eigen-state, and when it's in danger of happening, one of the socks has to vanish. Indeed the Uncertainty Principle also comes in --- the only time you know where a sock is, is when you're wearing it, and hence unable to be sure exactly how fast it's moving. The moment you stop moving and look at your sock, it then starts falling to pieces, changing colour, or otherwise becoming indeterminate. Either way, socks may possess Colour and Strangeness, but they seem to lack Charm.

Perhaps my favorite site is The Meaning of Lost Socks, because of its no-nonsense approach to the mystery:

"We of the American Datatician Society (ADS) are pleased to announce that the mystery of where lost socks go has been quantitatively pinpointed subsequent to a lengthy and rigorous double-blind study. . .We believe that the results, shown in the accompanying [table], contain no surprises, and in fact conform quite closely to what is called 'common sense.'"

26% Left in Washer
25% Left in Dryer
21% Dropped, to/from laundry
14% Stuck, through static, to corner of fitted sheet or article of clothing
13% One sock thrown out because other is "missing"

If you are lucky enough to currently be wearing a matching pair of socks, find out how many you've worn in your entire life by visiting the Sock Calculator. Me? I have worn approximately 9360 pairs of socks, and have owned approximately 1080 pairs of socks.

The whole sock thing reminded Jon of a dream (premonition?) he'd had the night before I wore my mismatch:

I did something to my foot and my toe next to my pinky toe was falling off. I had surgery on my foot to fix it and the surgeons messed up, and reattached the toe to the wrong foot. I had six toes on one foot, and four on the other!

I haven't found any mismatched toe sites on the Internet.