Skip to main content

What does happen to all of the socks that get lost in the dryer?

"Auntie Ivy?" asked Jamie who was trying (and failing) to help me fold up the laundry. He really did want to help me, but he was definitely still too little to do it. I had assigned him to finding matching socks because I figured he could help with that.

"Yes, Jamie?" I replied as I tried to discretely fold the underwear. I did not feel like answering any questions about why my underwear was shaped differently or had certain explicit patterns on it. I really just shouldn't have kept the pairs I'd gotten at bachelorette parties, but free was free! Now maybe I could have managed to not pack it for when I was watching my nephew for a week but that required more planning than a last minute trip took.

Not exactly my last minute trip, mind you. My sister and her husband had pretty spontaneously decided that they would celebrate their seven year anniversary with a grand, romantic Paris vacation, but they didn't want to bring Jamie without being able to a sitter come along with them and they couldn't realistically afford that. So my sister had called me to ask if I could watch my dear, dear godchild and I said yes. I did love my nephew so much and my sister knew it. She knew I couldn't pass up hanging out with him for so long, even if it meant a slapdash trip to the airport. And in that slapdash trip, I had grabbed the things I owned that were still clean only to find that my sister had left me her, her husband's, and her son's laundry to do, so I ended up washing all of my clothes just to be safe because my clean and dirty clothes often commingled.

Oh well. I had gotten so lost in my thoughts that I had missed what Jamie had said to me. "Sorry, Jamie, what did you say?"

He huffed a bit, but then repeated himself. "I said, 'Why are there socks that don't have a match?'"

"I'm sure there is a match somewhere, you just have to keep looking." I kept folding up my brother-in-law's shirts and tried to pretend it was normal when I found out his pajama pants had troll dolls on them.

"No, look," Jamie said forcefully..

I looked up from my stacks of laundry to look at his progress with the socks. He had sorted them all into piles by color, presumably to make finding matches easier. It was actually a pretty good system. But I did see that there was only one in the pink pile as well as the polka dot pile and then there were three in the yellow pile as well as the striped pile. "Huh, maybe we left some in the dryer. Let's go check."

Jamie and I went to the dryer and found no missing socks. "Where did they go?" asked Jamie.

"Must be the sock trolls," I said, whimsically.

"Trolls?" Jamie asked wide-eyed, luckily with interest and not horror. I'm glad that I played my card right and hadn't gotten it wrong.

"Yeah, trolls. They get dressed up in their favorite socks, but they only need one and don't like to match other trolls. This is why some pairs of socks end up missing their match."

"We should get more socks so we can try and see as many trolls as possible!" declared Jamie with an authority far above his years.

Loving the idea of my sister returning to an extra bin of socks for Jamie, I took my car keys out of my pocket and replied, "Let's find us a troll."

(Prompt by me)
Photo source

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

15 facts about my dad

Just been thinking about some lighthearted facts I know about my dad lately. When he was young, he had a goldfish named Lysander He introduced me to Star Trek At Christmas, he would tear up at It's a Wonderful Life He used to send me articles from his Yahoo email account that he thought I'd like We used to play a game called "Nightmare" where he would lie down and we'd jump around (and sometimes on) him He would clip possible recipes for us to try out of newspapers and magazines We bought him a Paddington Bear to take on trips because we feared he'd be lonely and he always took it He had teddy bears for three different holidays We once had such a hilariously difficult time building a gingerbread house that when some frosting ended up on the counter, I plopped a gumdrop on it and we laughed until we cried He and his sister were born about 11 months apart We would try recipes from Top Chef He kept gifts I made him, even when they weren't great At Christmas, ...

15 things you'll think about during your dad's latest hospital stay

This is meant to be a related piece to "15 things to do in your dad's hospital room," "15 Things You Find in Your Dad's Hospice Room," and "15 Things You Find When You Clean Out Your Dad’s Apartment" .  The Christmas lights at the nurse's station that should really have been switched for saccharine cupids by now What team decided to hang up a clearly labeled DRAFT safety sign Who comes up with the aliases they seem to use for trauma patients and how they decided on Redstone for your dad That his skin either looks like a bruised elephant or like sickeningly conflicting colors of thin paper mache Where you can possibly get food--you're shaky The patient in the ER somewhere with a lot of ammo, but no gun, or so they say Why the staff is being so happily loud and swearing...it feels discordant The used bandaid and gauze that are left on the floor of his ER room as he moves to his hospital room...the last proof he was there Having to do this a...

15 things I'm looking forward to for summer 2024

It'll be here so soon!  Whale watching with a friend Bookstore crawl with a friend 57th Street Art Fair Beach days Movies in the park Swapping out my wardrobe Being done with egg retrievals (hopefully) Helping a friend plan her wedding Going to Galena Taking other trips with friends Doing more sessions of my D&D one shot Eating ice cream on hot days Dining at the Point Trying to find an agent for my picture book ideas (hopefully) Reading more (hopefully) (Prompts by me) "Sperm Whale diving" by Bernard Spragg. NZ