Put a sock in it

Monday, October 13 08

Having emptied the contents of a pink waste bin, Mrs Bennet was surrounded by a sea of socks. Multi-coloured spotty socks, baby socks, white school socks, pink heart socks, "I love Mummy" socks, red socks, purple socks and striped blue and yellow socks surrounded a single male-sized black sock which looked out of place amongst the female foot warmers. To his credit, the male sock was in a minority for the right reason. All his male companions were still attached to their mates. The female versions on the other hand were having serious relationship problems. If they had once been married or committed to their partner, they were no longer attached. It didn't look good. The Bennet Socks were in desperate need of relationship counselling."Mr Bennet just what are we going to do with them all? I have 144 socks in front of me and only 14 are part of a pair. Where do they go? Some of them have hardly been worn!" she looked in desperation at her husband, who was rather proud that his socks obviously carried the anointing when it came to staying together."The vacuum cleaner sucked one up the other day and I managed to retrieve it from the dust," replied her husband. "That's only one sock? What about the rest? Pants and bras don't have this problem, so why do socks?!""My dear, I don't know," mumbled Mr Bennet, preferring to watch a television programme about big cats.Mrs Bennet turned to Mr Google for the answer. He came back with 595,000 references to odd socks. The Sock Monster was largely to blame, but among the explanations, was a suggestion that the socks were cannibals and ate each other up. Mrs Bennet wasn't convinced and was determined to love-match a few lost soles.
"I've found another pair...oh, and another!" declared an excited Mr Bennet, who hadn't given up hope after all. The sock bin was seven years old. With 18 socks now happily paired up, there were only 126 to find mates for. And there now wasn't one black sock among them. Mr Bennet was thrilled. His wife hadn’t noticed the lone male sock was hidden in his pocket.