Socks and Sandels

A small victory, but a victory none the less.

Today, this morning, on emptying the tumble dryer (I know it's profligate) I was able to match all my socks in the wash with their partners and re-unite a couple of them with their twins that had been marking time in the sock drawer unattached. I now have only three orphan socks.

The thing is these three are long term un-attached. Something quite deep is going on here. Frankly I suspect the missus of mis-filing them. You see my socks have their own drawer. It's clearly marked sock drawer (for the matching of), but I've caught my beloved poking the odd sock or two in other receptacles.

Once, when I was going through her knick knack  drawer, hunting for a wayward pair of pants I came upon a cache of my socks. All higgledy piggledy, red ones next to blue, spotted ones coupled with extra warmth Shetland wool ones. It took a while but I managed to get them into some sort of shape and get them matched and in line.

That was a blissful moment. The last time, years ago, when I had a 100% turn out of matched pairs. Standards have slipped since then and I'm afraid to say it's my own fault.

I will buy black socks. After a few washes they can end up looking like the missus's tights and I suppose that can lead to confusion. Although I have to say it doesn't take me too long to realise I'm trying on a pair of sheer denier rather than a manly Shetland shag, with hand knitted heels and toes. No, I suspect that lurking in the dark recesses of my wife's knicker drawer are beached a few of my orphaned socks.

This got me thinking. If I could solve the problem of the lost sock, I'd make a mint. There must be millions of men like me who despair at ever have a full set.

First I thought of little clips, so you could clip pairs together before you put them into the wash, or little bags for each pair. Except, either the clips would unclip or bagging up would be such an arse that no one would bother. Then I wondered whether a unique dye would be the answer. Each pair would have their own colour code, but again it's the effort required that would be its down fall.

No, radio active tagging that was the answer. Each pair would have a unique radio active signature and with your portable Geiger counter you could track your socks thro' their whole (half) life cycle. I gave this idea up when someone pointed out that millions of men  with luminescent feet might put off women during love making.

The radio active idea would deal with the orphan sock syndrome - a quick scan would locate the missing sock (wrapped up in a pair of the missus's M&S's) but it needed something less invasive.

Wi - fi'd socks. Each pair of socks is to be manufactured with two transmitters woven into their texture, with a unique frequency. Using a standard smart phone GPS app, each sock would then be traceable within a couple of hundred yards. Problem solved.

I tried to patent this earlier today, but apparently Apple got there first. It's their next paradigm shift in mobile technology.

Think of it. If you have two of anything - they'll never need be alone again, with a Sockittome app.