September 18, 2004

• pair your socks before you put them in the wash, and if they don't all match when you're done you know where you lost one. Works unless you are plagues by sock goblins.
• Yup - the pin method is best. I was converted 5 years ago (by my now fiance), and haven't had an odd sock since. They sell fancy sock holders, but most come off in the wash. In a large household, where there might be a couple of people with socks that are very similar (or even exactly the same), you can also use pins to identify them - someone pins at the top, someone else at the bottom, maybe someone else in the middle. (At four people, you start running into trouble).
• Buy 10 identical pairs. Repeat as required.
• what I love most about this post is that I have learned a new phrase "sockherding" heehee this brings really funny images into my head. nomads on the open plains, on horseback, herding the bands of wild socks... socks rearing up and galloping across the steppes...free, like the sock gods intended... ok, must be time for lunch. bloodsugar obviously a little low
• A lingerie bag?
• I too vote for the buying lots of pairs of identical socks. I never pair them. when they come out oft eh washer i dump them into the drawer. When I want socks, I grap two that are the same. I have both flavors of socks: white and black as well as long and short. other than that, they are all 10 socks in a bag kind.
• I've run into similar troubles with all forms of clothing, and I've come to the conclusion that either the washer and/or the dryer is equiped with some sort of teleportation device and has been stealing articles of clothing for the past ten years or they eat clothing. Those theories assume of course that the washer and dryer are alive and are holding a grudge against me for some unknown transgression. So I just buy new socks when I start running low.
• I have a more general observation here. Orbiting back and forth between two countries, I notice that there are things in each society that is obviously done better in the other. However, its very, very difficult to get the locals to admit that the other way of doing it is the better way. Case in point: British people preferentially buy manual gear shift cars, even though automatics are clearly better (at least for the vast majority fo drivers). If you point this out to them they look, pittyingly, at you and opine that you clearly don't know anything about driving. Conversely, Canadian road signs suck. However, Canadians are utterly convinced that ergonomic road signage is impossible. If you tell a Canadian how they do road signage in the UK, they'll more than likely ask you what kind of utopian dreamworld you think you're living in. Sock pinning is a clear example of this phenomenon. Sock pinning is so clearly better than any other system of sockherding I've encountered, that it seems inconceivable to me that people would willingly choose not to do it. I mean, you can go through all the extra trouble of making sure you have large numbers of absolutely identical socks or you can just buy whatever sock are on sale and one 35p bag of safety pins that will last you the next twenty years. But getting people to admit that sock pinning is better is like... buying an electrical surge projector in the UK. You just can't do it.
• Yabbut, sockpins coming out of the dryer are ungodly hot. Socks aren't worth burnt fingers. Plus! Socks are tools of the patriarchy. Or something. Really. True story.
• My dryer doesn't make sock pins hot! He protested feebly. Also, I just looked at my previous post and realized that I'd said 'electrical surge projector' instead of 'protector'. I'm afraid it's the middle of the night, and I'm not thinking straight, but I'm having fun thinking of what an electrical surge projector might do. ('this thing says there'll be three to twelve surges in the next six hours!')
• how can a dryer NOT make pins hot? and don't the pins make ungodly noise in the dryer? and is sockherding sorta like kittenherding?
• Trouble is, most pins my tribe knows of have a horrible tendency to come undone in the drying cycle, slip quietly away from their socks, and take up residency in some vital part of the dryer's mechanism. I'm a huge fan of the "buy mutliple pairs of identical socks" theory. If only M&S wouldn't keep changing their goddam styles, I could be happy forever.
• Flip flops
• *only owns black socks*
• Isn't 'ungodly' a fun word?
• ungodly is such a cromulent word ;)
• The occasional sock is the price the gods of laundry extract from us for allowing Snuggle the Bear to live.
• Pins never come out of the dryer that hot - and I still would have odd socks, because even black socks come in different styles. Short, long, the one with the ribbed end, the one with the slightly less ribbed end. And with pins, you don't even have to worry about pulling out two socks - you just grab one sock pair, and know that you have enough for a day.
• I get spooked by those scratching, klanging sounds my jeans' brass buttons occasionally make on the dryer, so adding sharp pieces of metal would be too much. Plus, I've never really had a missing sock; last week, as I unloaded a fresh charge, just as I was closing the door, noticed something clinging to the inner border of the door, almost out of sight: yes, a sock, glued to the metal due to static. As I put it inot the basket, realized I should have taken a photo of it, as proof for some monekys. Oh well. I'll repeat my perosnal sock mistery: why one gives out/gets a hole/gets loose/loses its' color before the other?
• Dyselxai is yoru freind. Ah fcuk.
• Now, the things are: 1.I also lose safety pins. 2. They can wrench or tear my socks in the awful Nostril washing machine which is a tad temperemental these days, in its second decade. 3. Too hard for someone so lazy as me.
• Since switching to all-white socks, I no longer have the missing sock syndrome. Those socks without mates are those whose match expired in some fashion and were consigned to the Home for Cast-Off Socks.
• What kind of socks does a pirate wear? AARRRRGGHyle! Sorry, wrong thread
• Especially for Nostrildamus: Sox
• He woz a phantom of delight, He walks in two socks like a knight, And one is green and one is white -- He really doesn't look quite right.
• I feel embiggened by that poem.
• Just as a side note, as no one else seems to have mentioned it, apparently most washing machines have a spillover at the top and as the clothes are rapidly agitated, socks, which are very light, float at the top of the washer and are lost down the spillover. I've heard of people with clogged drains because of socks that spilled over. ...For those of you who wonder where the socks go despite a meticulous accounting, that's one possibility. The sock black hole is actually the sewer system.
• Full ounces five thy stocking weighed, Of its yarns were fleeces made; Its colours warm would light a blaze Except its worthless dyes did fade. What washing faded, dryer shrank, Now what remains is grey and lank, Unfit to cover a freezing shank.
• It's people like YOU, PigAlien, and YOU, Dreadnought, who will be the cause of the soon to come lack of socks on this earth. How else do socks proliferate except to escape into the wild, where they then find their soulmates and procreate, producing litters in various sizes and colors, unmatched and waiting to be harvested for our chilly nekked feet? Why are you interrupting the great Natural Cycle of Life? What have socks ever done to you except to keep your feet cozy and warm? You should be excited and pleased when one of your socks comes of age and goes to the Great Sock Refuge to replicate itself. I'm telling you, this outragous pinning and rolling and tying and laundry bagging of socks must stop for the good of us all! *breaks down weeping at the plight of the socks
• BlueHorse I think you and I have a Crusade to start!
• Wot about all those Abandoned Mates of Missing Socks?
• Bees - they make pretty good dust cloths - especially those with the terry cloth insides.
• solution 1: flip flops solution 2: sock puppets
• 3.Ineffectual hood for a falcon. 4.Cap for dachshunds (cut off toe, snip four slits for legs, space them to fit) 5.Nose-warmers for collies (don't forget to snip an airhole in the end) 6.A sack for your marble collection /from Wedge's 101 Ways To Use An Unmatched Sock
• 7. Pasta strainer for solitary anorexic diner 8. Key stage prop for Red Hot Chili Peppers 9. Hipster handbag (add drawstring) 10. Cat toy (add nip)
• Socks are great for cleaning up after... uh... self-pleasuring. Just grab a dirty one, turn it inside out, stick your hand in and wipe away!
• Indignant protestors free and wash Sexually Abused Socks!
• Just to counterbalance PigAlien's sockist statement, and to give beeswacky grist for his indignant mill: Women use towels. Or sheets. Or underwear. Fact, anything but socks. Fact, even maybe socks!
• Mmmhh.. so maybe that's the real solution to the mistery? Socks dissolve when... permeated with certain organic emissions?
• I loose an indignant howl-- when you're wanky, use a hanky or, better yet, a towel! But not a sock, That's truly skanky! Stop this carnage! End the Slaughter of Innocent Socks!
• Well, think about it - if you were a sock, would you rather have someone shove a fist inside you, or a foot? I'd choose the fist!
• monkeyfilter sinks to new lows...
• >>Socks are great for cleaning up after... uh... self-pleasuring. pigalien, you sound as delightfully feral as my sweetie!
• Now that's something I'm going to put on my resume - feral and proud! Perhaps I'll even start a feral pride march!
• Monkeyfilter: fist or foot?
• echo islander's for mine. tracicle's idea for my newborn's socks. Wife belives in mass tonnage - she has enough socks to fill Imelda Marcos' shoes twice over and relies on the statistical probablility that at least one pair of identical socks will be found.
• herding the bands of wild socks... Ah, my forefathers came from balmy Norway where they herded socks aplenty... The occasional sock is the price the gods of laundry extract from us for allowing Snuggle the Bear to live. Then let him die! Look, I'm a bear(guy), I've worked with bears(and guys), and Snuggle is no bear. *pauses to consider the facts Okay, he is a bear, that's pretty definite, but he's a freakin' weird lookin' bear. Eeerie. Let the gods of laundry take him for their own bizarre Lovecraftian purposes if they want.
• Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard The Luv Craft! The Luv Craft abruptly lists as hordes of deranged post-Talk-Like-A-Pirate-Day simians all rush to starboard. It keeps listing. Shrieks and groans. And keeps on listing. Thanks to Mr. Gravity, Compulsory Bath occurs.
• Mmmhh.. so maybe that's the real solution to the mistery? Socks dissolve when... permeated with certain organic emissions? Or maybe they just run away hidding in shame... Slightly off-topic but here are the best ads (mpegs at the bottom of page) featuring a Snuggle bear look-alike (NostalgiaFilter).
• Bees, the nice part is that after the Compulsory Bath, we can all put on clean and matched socks, except for Nostril, of course.
• BlueHorse: In a spirit of solidarity I have decided to wear only unmatched socks myself until such time as the gloating gargoyles of Google see fit to restore both Nostril's lucky green socks to him. Mankind does not live by thread alone. Humankind needs socks. Green is gorgeous! If we have luck, we have it all. When we don't, we're in dire trouble. Only foot by foot can our journey be accomplished. And at this point, seems like we need all the luck we can muster to accomplish our collective evolutionary destiny. Wotever that may be. And, too, this decision should make Laundry Day in my household a far happier occasion. In truth, I am not a natty dresser in my daily rounds, having a tendency to blunder about with my jacket or shirt on inside out. But perhaps now I will be allowed to give uo the last vestige of sartorial coherence which my near and dear so earnestly beseech me tp attempt. After 62 years, you would think they'd know a Lost Cause when they encounter him.
• Careful, Bees. I know you love these young rascals, as do I, but too much identification with the young simians could endanger our reputations. Why, next thing you'll be going 'round without your trousers, like our Pete_best! And I could be in line for one of Iggy's tatts! oh, horrors! Far better to remain as dignified as possible at our advanced and unmentionable ages.
• Heh. NlueHorse, dignity is just an illusion projected on us by others. Why encourage their errors? Besides, wot has dignity ever done for me? *continues pairing socks that do not match*
• OK, Bees, if you really want to go off the deep end, wear one sock and a mismatched pair of shoes--perhaps even a woman's heel. Set a trend!
• Only mismatched socks, BlueHorse. I have, however, managed to tie a pair of together in such a way as to enable me to wear 'em as a headband. Though they chafe my antennae a bittie.
• Our Bees is so definately wittie. Poems produced quite lickity-splittie. His poetry silly or grittie The Bashi he'll always outwittie. His socks mismatched quite befit he. And his shoe do matter one whittie. /bad poetry
• Heh. Maybe I could wear a horseshoe on one foot, since you're set on this mismatched shoe thing, BlueHorse. Though I think I must save that for my next incarnation...the one where I come back as an Allapoosa.
• Hive been looking everywhere for this poignant thread of sock loss. This was all back in the time before Chy incarnated as Chy.