Socks

Tuesday, August 29th, 2017

It happens all the time; you might be surprised. And today was a great example: I found a hoodie and a pair of socks left in my truck. The hoodie was obviously Anna's, but I didn't know who belonged to the socks. It couldn't have been anybody who had ridden in my truck yesterday, they all had shoes on the whole time, so it must have been from the day before. That narrowed down my conceivable options to three people: Luke, Christy, and Rachel. The socks were super low ankle style, just enough to slip over your heel while barely managing to hold on. They were stretchy, form-fitting, and black with various shades of bright light blue going wide ways across. In a word, they were girl socks. I never really got how these types of socks ever made it past the screening process for being an actual sock. You know, the simple stuff like: staying on your foot, protecting your foot, preventing chaffing for more than two and a half centimeters up your ankle, and ease of being spotted (because they're so small and short and curl up easily into a tiny ball because of the stretchiness). At least the last one they remedy by slapping all sorts of outlandishly bright colors all over it so you can actually spot them when they go missing, because they always will for they are so tiny when not stretched out. In a word, they were girl socks. There are some obstacles in this world that girls have to deal with that would drive me mad, and which I'm always amazed at the apparent ease with which they accomplish these feats. This pair of socks is one of those things.

Anyways, I sought out Rachel in the commons this morning to return said pair of socks, but she denied ownership of them and did not show any desire whatsoever of claiming them for herself, so I resolved to seek out Christy. But just then class started, so I was delayed from my pursuit, and immediately after that class was another one, and after that class was through, Christy was not to be found. Determined, I went upstairs to the pidge boxes, which are these little mail boxes that each student has for in-school mail, flyers, etc. I wrote a quick note detailing how I thought the socks were hers, and saying if they were not hers she could either return them to me or adopt them herself. This done, I placed the note and the socks in her pidge box and went on with my day.

I thought nothing of this for the rest of the day, and as evening came upon the earth, it found me sitting at a table drinking tea with Christy and Charli. I had just swung by to drop off nine plates, but we got to talking, and then the teapot whistled, and next thing you know I was sitting down with a mug of tea in my hand... still not quite sure how that happened. At any rate, it was a sore-needed study break. Well, by and by Christy mentioned the socks she had found in her pidge along with the note, and that she had determined to adopt them as her own. She was just going to put them in her bag when who should come walking by but Luke himself: "What are you doing with my socks!?" At this Christy burst up laughing and told him about the note left behind, and that she and I had assumed they were girl socks. Luke, to be sure, was left in a small amount of disarray concerning the assumed provenance of his socks. As Christy related this all to me I cracked up laughing in slightly contorted fits of uncontrollable smiles and dampness around the corner of my eyes, and didn't stop until she had finished her account, and even kept going a little after that. It was just too much. It was perfect.