Yesterday Chimpit called me an odd sock, and I’m not sure what she meant by that. Did she mean I’m one of a kind, or was it something more sinister? Could she have been trying to tell me I’m obsolete? Perhaps I’m reading too much into it (although there was the time I was going to a party where everybody was dressing up as dairy products, and Chimpit told me to go as a Kraft single). Perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions because that very day I had a drawer cleanse. It was one of those times when you’re doing laundry and you notice you have a lot of odd socks. Way too many. I had just about as many odd socks as I had pairs, and they weren’t even similar. There were black ones, blue ones, grey ones, outgrew ones; socks with holes, socks without soles, socks as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Half my drawer was full of odd socks. I had to get rid of them, but instead of throwing out the whole lot, I kept a handful of the good ones. These were the cream of the odd sock crop. The ones that had obviously only been worn a few times before their twin went MIA. They were too good to toss, because who knows, one day that errant twin could show up at my drawer.
What is it about us that makes us keep things like that? Is it Faith? Hope? Do we cling to relics like odd socks in the hope that one day The Fates will conspire to show us our diligence was not unwarranted? Do we hope that one day all things odd will become like, and Balance will be restored? Maybe it’s an allegory for the rest of our lives. Maybe we symbolically lament for our lost socks, and always keep their room just the way it was when they left, so we don’t have to face the real issues. Maybe those odd socks represent the hauntings of lost loves, or missed opportunities. Whatever it is, I’m too much of a realist to believe that my wayward socks will return with horns blaring to restore the glory of my second drawer. Even so, I often allow the odd socks to linger on, forgotten, neglected, nothing more than moth fodder, as if some part of me actually does believe in Resurrection. Perhaps a small part of me is optimist after all…
You may have noticed that I mentioned Chimpit earlier. In an unexpected move she told her boss to stick it and came home to me. The left sock has returned to join the right and complete the pair. These two odd socks are like once more. Perhaps we’re proof that it’s possible. In that case maybe it isn’t foolishness to cling to our odd sock-like possessions...I wish I’d thought of that before I went to the dump. I could have devoted a separate drawer to my odd socks, a shrine if you will, or at the very least made an army of sock puppets.
