Another restless night, but at least I don’t have to walk to work in the rain. That’s the good news. The bad news is that when I did my laundry yesterday, I came up at the end with three “singleton” socks: socks without a mate. What happened? Scrupulous checking of the washer and dryer revealed no further socks, and so I have written them off, placing the socks in my ever-growing “singleton bag” in hopes that their mates will eventually turn up. I gather this is a general problem, for there’s even a drawing (below) of a “sock monster” responsible for purloining the socks. I’ve even thought of propitiating this monster by first throwing a single old sock into the washing machine as an offering, but it didn’t work. Here’s the sock monster, with a proboscis adapting to sucking up those socks you’re missing; it’s apparently from a Terry Pratchett novel:
But we’re here for the Furry Princess of Poland. And in Dobrzyn, Cyrus is trying to lord it over her:
Hili: Did you check the stock market today?
Cyrus: Yes, cats’ shares are falling, dogs’ shares are rising
Hili: Sprawdzałeś dziś giełdę?
Cyrus: Tak, akcje kotów spadają, a psów rosną.
*******
Meanwhile in Wroclawek, tabby Leon has a housemate for a while. The backstory from Malgorzata:
“The black cat belongs to Elzbieta’s husband’s uncle, who is old and is now in the hospital or something. Elzbieta and Andrzej are taking care of this cat and two dogs who are all living in the uncle’s house in a village nearby. The cat’s name is Felek. They took Felek home to get him vaccinated but will return him to his beloved dogs though Elzbieta dreams about keeping him. She says that he is the most beautiful cat she’s ever seen.”
Leon: And who are you? What are you doing under my chest of drawers?
The sock monster comes from the novel ‘Hogfather’. On the Discworld (Pratchett’s mythical flat-earth world) the Hogfather was the equivalent of Santa Claus.
The Auditors of Reality wage a war on imaginary beings (such as the Hogfather) with the result that there is a surplus of free imagination around and as a result, any creature which anybody imagines is likely to pop into existence. Hence the sock monster.
One of Pratchett’s better novels, and it was made into a TV movie.
cr
Here you are, the secret of the missing socks, explained by children’s television series Die Sendung mit der Maus (in German, but you don’t really need to understand the words):
So, an easy solution to the problem, eh!
My boring answer is to buy ten pairs of identical socks. That way I can only ever have one odd sock. Just noticed tychabrahe below has the same solution.
Poor Felek. I hope his person is better soon.
I have solved the sock problem. I go to Wal-Mart (or order online) several six-packs of men’s black crew socks. (I am a woman, but I have large feet.). I think I started with 18 pair. I wear them, and when I start to get low, maybe every two years or so, I bundle them up and donate them and buy more. The best part is that I no longer have to match socks after doing the laundry. I just have a sock bin they get dumped in, since they all match.
I guess it’s sock it to you…
Lets hope Felek gets home soon. Hili and Cyrus should stop looking at the stock market – just ignore it.
That sock monster looks like a snouter to me. I assume you’re familiar with the order Rhinogradentia?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia
The biology of lost socks:
Socks are boneless animals. Although they look like feet, they can’t walk. Look at them, flopping aimlessly in the dryer. If a sock gets too much starch, however, it stiffens up and hops away.
The Dobrzyn drama unfolds like the plot of a soap opera or Downton Abbey.
Frustrate sock monster: mesh lingerie bag. They can’t work the zipper.
This is my first comment after reading for quite some time. I was in school in San Francisco in 1974. A friend showed me this cartoon and I laughed so hard I had tears. I saved it in my copy of I and Thou by Buber. I always hoped the book would have answers to hard questions like what happened to my socks – but doesn’t. I don’t know how to embed an image, but here is the text by the cartoonist Feiffer:
I go to the laundromat to do a wash. Included in the wash are 8 pairs of socks.
Out of the wash come 6 pairs of socks plus 1 gray sock and 1 blue sock.
A week later I go to the laundromat to do a wash. Included in the wash are 6 pairs of socks.
Out of the wash come 4 pairs of socks plus 1 black sock and 1 green sock.
A week later I go to the laundromat to do a wash. Included in the the wash are 4 pairs of socks.
Out of the wash come 2 pairs of socks. The other socks never show up.
The next day I go to the laundromat. As an experiment I put in nothing but my last 2 pairs of socks.
Out of the wash comes a body stocking. In the body stocking I find a note.
The note says “Quit trifling with the laws of nature and bring the machine more socks.
Ha!
I recently found a long, long lost sock when clearing out extraneous stuff from our basement/laundry room. It was matched again with its partner with great ceremony.
Felek is a pretty kitty!
I hope you are able to sleep better. I find I am sleeping all the time. Maybe there is a sleep monster like that sock monster!
I was so impressed with the knowledge I could acquire when first I went on to the world wide web years ago. I found out that the rings of Saturn are made up of all the escaped socks from planet Earth. So now I can share this with all of you.
I know the feeling of the missing sock mate.
I keep a soft glove in my drawer, though I know its mate disappeared in another state several years prior. I feel a slight pang in my chest every time I see it alone and don’t have the heart to give up hope. One day, maybe the glove mate will return. . .
(I’ve even gone to REI to see if I could find the same make of gloves. Alas, they don’t make them anymore.)
You seem to have the same strain of OCD as I. What are your thoughts on toilet paper orientation?
@Diana: For me, toilet paper orientation depends on whether I’m living with someone who has an strong preference for whether it it goes around the top or is pulled from the bottom. I enjoy finding out what others’ (household) preferences are and mirroring them. Often I find that other people have tendencies that are stronger than mine. In which case, it is more enjoyable to mirror them than fuss. But I have never chosen a partner who was less organized than me and tend to pick people whose circadian rhythms are more robust than mine. So, it is hard to say how I’d respond to someone who, say, never put the toilet paper on the roll, which could bring me greater irritation than orientation, unless I was synched so deep with the other person that it was a nonissue.
On my own, I tend to situate the toilet paper roll so that the paper is pulled up around the top, but I would not have this preference had I not learned it from someone else. And there are times when I abandon toilet paper orientation and placement rituals altogether. For instance, it’s funny that you brought this particular issue up, as just this past week, I’ve not put the toilet paper on the roll and have allowed myself to be annoyed 🙂
You equivocate like a Unitarian. 😉
@rickflick: Hahaha 🙂
The reference to unitarians reminds me that in September I saw a tw**t by Paul Bloom that made me chuckle in public.
He wrote:
“Something just reminded me that, when much younger, I got “Unitarians” and “Utilitarians” mixed up, which led to some very silly arguments.”
I can just imagine trying to explain a utilitarian position and accidentally referring to it as unitarian.
Your question made me wonder about your take on toilet paper orientation and/or daily rituals in general. (I wondered whether being sleepy from the incorrect iron dose impacted the strength of some daily preferences. Have you abandoned any rituals to cope with the tired state? What about timing, frequency, and amount of food consumption?)
I am a violently under person which most, including Jerry, disagree with. But, me and the cats know what’s what.
Oh my goodness! I love it, Diana!
And given my preference for mirroring, which remember I said I enjoy, I have taken my toilet paper, which I’d been stranding on my sink, and now placed it on the roll and in the Under position.
Of course, this won’t last for me, but it can be Under in your honor for a while.
🙂
This wrong-headed TP-orientation fetish of Diana’s is notorious around here. It’s a wonder we keep her around. Would you believe she actually changes other people’s TP orientations when left alone in their bathrooms?
Ahem, I’m always left alone when I’m in a bathroom.
My wife is under, I am over. I always fix it as soon as I see she’s replaced it. I don’t think she even notices.
Okay, I’m going to go from playful to nerdy in one galactic leap:
Yes, I can believe it, and as I have no evidence for the TP-reorienting behavior, I have to believe versus accept it 🙂
The ability to successfully meme oneself fascinates me. I toy with creating an eccentric persona but haven’t yet found a way to avatar myself in a way that captures imagination consistently with a theme that is simple enough to work broadly. (Something like the New Yorker cartoon images for its editors or Jerry’s PCCE. . .) The under TP-ing connected to the cat photo was brilliant.
(@ Charleen)
We can’t all be as sophisticated as Diana.
Oh brother!
Have I taken this too far, Diana? If so, I’m sorry!
As someone who just tonight laughed loudly in a theatre at the face the cat made in The Hunger Games, I think it is hard to go too far with me.
That’s hilarious! 😀
What I want to catch is the TP monster that consistently pinches the last sheets on the roll and doesn’t replace it.
Also the designers of complicated TP ‘dispensers’ that regularly jam, stick or otherwise fail to disgorge the vital sheets in an emergency.
cr
No t.p. proselytizing here!!!!!
Damn it, Jerry caught me!
I would have thought that when giving lectures it was mandatory that you wore odd socks. Perhaps this is only an english thing.