Orphan Socks

I have a drawer, just behind my home office chair, where the orphan socks live.

Black socks, white socks, everywhere a sock sock...

I have no idea how or why the sock orphanage has become so populated. Where do their partners go?

"In the garbage," suggested Ben when asked to share his ideas. In the case of the socks who develop large, gaping, unmendable, holes he is exactly right. But what about the others?

I stretch and extend my body over the top of the dryer peering down into that mysterious place in the back, a natural spot where it would be easy to get lost. Dark, dusty, there is no sign of anything, not even a forgotten wash cloth or two.

Determined to make a dent in this growing pile of disparate stockings, I go to each bedroom in the house thumbing through the sock drawers in hopes of finding something. Dylan's room first, followed by ours, then Ben's.

"Maybe this is one," I say to myself hopefully, grabbing a few soloists at the bottom of the pile.

"One sock, two sock, red sock, blue sock," wrote Barb on Facebook. "I feel an hommage to Dr. Seuss is appropriate in this circumstance."

"Where have all my sockies gone, long time passing" she continued. "they went missing one by one, long time ago."

Maybe they get eaten by the washer, squeezing between the cracks in the spin cycle, retiring to that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns? Perhaps they shuffle off this mortal coil in the dryer, becoming shreds and shards, propelled up through the exhaust pipe and blown outdoors to get whisked away by the wind?

It's a deep, compelling mystery, one that baffles me every Saturday when I gather up the darks, whites and colours and put them through their paces.

The orphanage overfloweth, now creeping over the edges of the drawer, 40 socks strong, ever hopeful that one day they will reacquainted and reconnected with their long lost brothers and sisters.