People, People Like You, People Ask.

People ask me, how is it that you have lost so few socks? First, some facts. I have lost 2 maybe 3 socks over the last 20 years. And 2 of those were those super thin cycling socks, which could have gotten caught up in another piece of clothing in the dryer and maybe got tucked away somewhere.

This is how I don't lose socks.

You lose socks at those times/moments or fantasy junctures when the socks are vulnerable to being lost. I discovered that those times are recognizable if you are sensitive to all times at all times. This being a discussion of sock-weakness time, I confine myself to that discussion, which is this essay.

I at some point recognized and still do that I knew when the socks were vulnerable to being lost. See if you recognize these situations. You are moving too fast, shoving laundry here and there so as to get to something you imagine is more pressing. You are tired, and it shows in how you lump about holding armfuls of ill-managed laundry....

I want to be a man about this and tell it "like it is" so here goes. You have attended to the laundry - up to a point - then the whole thing goes to Hell in a hand basket because you throw the dried laundry into a hand basket or go-kart without first folding it, and matching up socks, and pairing them appropriately as in the age-old parallel cuff inversion formula.

Note that a formula is a form for relating formation and form. Back now.

You choose where you fail. It is not my job to tell you your business. I do know this. I know that for men socks are one of the few accoutrements we can enjoy and get away with - argyles, bright colors: all the joy and chic of the donnable is oftentimes rendered alive only in socks. To lose a sock of a set one loves can be painful. It can be defeating and deflating. Deflating, says I. Opting for a style or non-style of sock all of a type is worse than murder, it is a ruining of nature.

And so I know one other thing. If you manage your laundry properly you will not lose socks unless you are a cyclist or a ballerina, I suppose. And even if you should lose one or two from now until you die, you will chalk up those losses to experience, as tokens forfeited to the notion of completeness that awaits in another, better life. A life, to be sure, where a sock is just a sock.