Saving The Planet One Sock At A Time

There is a basket in my closet. It's full of socks, single socks, divorced from their mates, soiled, tattered and woebegone. And it has begun seriously to lurk. Doc keeps begging me to reunite the lonesome and forlorn dress socks with dress socks, athletic socks with athletic socks, Dora socks with Dora socks. I keep promising him I'll do it. But there that basket sits, a wasteland of single socks, too depressing to contemplate. Months have gone by and we are still locked in a silent showdown of inaction, a cold feet war.

Last night, however, we reached a detente. We decided that we would gather up those lonely soles and give them a new purpose, one which does not necessarily require their reunion with their twins. The basket will be swooped up and carried to each and every sock drawer in the house. We will gather up the rest of the socks in the house, paired or not, and put them the basket. Then we will pour them all in a nice laundry bag and label it with a Sharpie: Sock Puppets To Be. After we have found a place to store the bag, we will skip off to Target, barefooted in our sandals, and buy two dozen new pairs of socks for each of us.

Doc wants two dozen identical pairs of socks so that he won't have to ever worry about mating them again. I'm not sure that will work for me. I dream of new trouser socks in a variety of colors that maybe have some embossed patterns on them, and, of course, argyle socks. For the girls we will procure bobby socks and maybe some argyles for them too.

While I'm at Target, I will also get some googly eyes, pom poms and other doo-dads, along with glue and fabric markers to complete our sock puppet kit. Now, whenever the kids are bored, we can sit down, think of a story, create some characters and have a puppet show. I'll be able to entertain the neighborhood kids and maybe they will take some sock puppets home with them and get years of joy. Or not. But at least I will feel better knowing we put them to some use, rather than pitching them outright, which was my first impulse.

This solution is so sweet for me; I am a huge fan of puppets. I'm also seriously unmotivated to mate socks. Thank God I got my raise and backpay! Now we can afford to retire a bunch of socks, that have served us well but are no longer fit for duty, and replace them with new foot soldiers, while reducing just that much more of the stress in my life and the trash in this world. Darn, it feels good.