There has been a conundrum that has long been wondered by many. Right now the same question is burning in my mind. This weekend I have mulled it over and over. I have even googled it. To my dismay no one can give me the uniequivical answer.
What happens to the other sock that goes missing in the washing machine?
This week we have tried to get through as much clothes washing as possible on the days when the sun has deemed it appropriate to show itself and chase the rain away. The house has looked like a Chinese laundry. Underwear hanging from the retractable clothes line in the laundry, jeans and shirts on temporary metal racks inhabiting half the lounge with the heater blowing dry air over them and sad, lonely socks pegged in left over spaces. If they were endowed with anthropomorphism I am sure they would be weeping for the loss of their mate.
“Perhaps it was aliens?” was one answer proffered by Google. Ah, as if they would be bothered to fly all the way from wherever, wait until I do my clothes washing, secretly land (I assume they have drugged the household or time shift so that we remained unawares of their visit) and steal wet, soggy socks. One of them. From each pair. Obviously aliens must be monopedal.
I admit that I do like Sir Terry Pratchett’s theory. (Go read Hogfather some time.) The Eater of Socks was one of the random generation of anthropomorphic personifications, along with Bilious the Oh God of Hangovers and the Verruca Fairy. I have checked all around the washing machine in case the socks had been separated at ‘washing machine entry’ and have never sighted an entity that lives near washing machine and has an elephant’s trunk.
Maybe it was the cat. The poor cat gets blamed for almost everything in our house. Mind you, she is very cunning. Having lived almost twice the expected age for her breed (she is now 20 and was expected to only make 10 years – 15 if we were fortunate), she has a lot of experience to draw on. She is the “stealer of sausages from under the lit grilI“, “purloiner of choice bits of steak from unattended plates“, “ice-cream thief” and “hug slut“. But alas she is not, and has never been known as, ‘wearer of odd socks‘.
So what is the answer to the industrial-age old question – What happens to the other sock that goes missing in the washing machine? It is obvious. It is the ‘alien cat summoned forth to personify the Eater of Socks to console all those who are so distracted by their socialising on mobile phones that they cannot keep track of a simple pair of socks and have no one else to blame.”
Simples.
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