The Sock Dilemma, A Short Story

April 23rd, 2012

Arguments happen. They happen to the best of us no matter how strong the relationship is. Sometimes they're healthy and sometimes they're not. Other times the argument can give you a good laugh when you reminisce about days gone by. Like the time when...

My alarm goes off at the usual time, 6:15am on my work days. I hate that sound. A high pitch shrieking buzz sound. Like an annoying pet bird that doesn't come with a snooze button.

I always set my alarm clock 15 minutes fast. I don't know why. Maybe for a tactical advantage to trick my body that I may be late for work. However, my mind knows that it's really 6am when the annoying tone blasts and I wind up hitting snooze until the last possible second.

When I'm done teasing my body with the snooze button my mind says, "Get up you lazy bastard."

I finally get out of bed and like every other morning .I stumble around like I just had a couple beers the night before. My dog Champ, a beautiful Yellow Labrador, knows how many times I hit the alarm clock's snooze button. Once I press it the final time he gets up from his orthopedic dog bed that is placed on the floor on my side of the bed, really man's best friend. He walks down the hallway and lays beside the bathroom door.

As if his brain told him to "sit, lay down you are a lazy bastard."

I don't think Champ does this out of his eagerness to greet me first thing in the morning. He knows his breakfast is about 10 minutes away from being served.

I stumble down the hallway towards the bathroom I step over Champ carefully avoiding all of his appendages and into the bathroom where all of the life's early morning necessities are taken care of before the day begins. As usual before I walk out of the bathroom I look at the floor and at the clothes that I have taken off the night before. The pile has grown in height since the last time I was in there. The clothes range from black under shirts that I wear under my uniform and bullet proof vest. To knock around t-shirts and 2 pairs of underwear.

One pair of underwear is red and little white reindeer on them. The other pair of underwear are blue with Christmas snow globes scattered around them. Clearly these are worn in times of emergency when my regular underwear supply is running low. Soon I'll be resorting to my glow in the dark Halloween pair.

There are also socks peppered in the piling of clothes. As I walk out I think to myself," I really need to put those dirty clothes in the laundry basket. My wife is going to be pissed if she isn't already."

After I feed the dogs and get dressed I realize I can not find any socks. I'm not talking your standard cotton sock or dressy socks. These are double stitched double cotton very comfortable postal socks.

As a gift Mimie bought me these socks because of the extra comfort they provide to those people who are on the feet all the time. I loved them and have become so accustom to them I can't work without them.

Suddenly I remember seeing a pair on that pile of laundry in the bathroom. I march straight to the bathroom like a soldier on a mission. I find a pair. Smell them. "Fine to me" I think and wear them, again. After my long twelve hour work day in the hot Florida sun I get home. Mimie is siting on the couch. Her arms are folded. Her right leg is crossed over the top of her left leg. It;s dangling down. She bounces it like its spring loaded. She cocks her head back and looks directly at me.

"Where did you find the socks?" she said holding her breath.

I told her, "I seemed to be running out of socks and clothes in general. So I reused another pair that were on that pile of clothes in the bathroom. Don't worry though. They smelled clean enough to wear again." I stared straight faced at her

"Oh, the pile of clothes that are stacking up in the bathroom?" she said with a sound of frustration.

"Yea. And really you should do something about that. Its getting piled high." I said with sincerity in my voice.

"Why don't you just place them in the laundry basket to begin with?" She said and then bites her bottom lip.

"Well, I don't know. I just don't want to bother you when your in the room when your pre-occupied is all" I  said thinking that if i showed concern for her it would smooth this over.

"You know what bothers me more then being bothered in the bedroom? The pile of clothes piling up in the bathroom!" she said raising her voice just a little.

"Yea, but the laundry basket gets piled up so to lighten the load I leave them here." I told her with a straight face.

"That's because when I do laundry you refill it with the clothes that are piled in the bathroom." She said making a good point. "Haven't you noticed that you have been running out of clothes?"

I look at her with my dumb face," Yes. I have been using my emergency holiday underwear."

"That's because I have stopped washing the clothes that are lying in the bathroom floor. Hello." she said with more frustration. "Oh" I said I couldn't muster up a better response. "What have you been doing for socks?" she said with sarcasm.

"I wanted to tell you. I thought they were getting lost in the laundry, because I don't have any more socks. So I went out and bought more today." I said with some concern.

"You what?" Mimie said in disbelief.

"I bought more socks today since the other ones are getting lost in the laundry."

Mimie's mouth dropped,"They're not lost", she said as she walked away.

She walked in the kitchen and into a cabinet where the large pot and pans are kept. She returns with a plastic grocery bag in her hand. She approaches me and drops it at my feet."There you go. Socks and plenty of them."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"What am I taking about? I'll tell ya what I'm talking about. Your socks. I'm tired of looking at them. Socks on the floor. Socks in the bedroom. Sock in the bathroom. socks on top of dirty clothes! I got tired of seeing them so I collected them in a bag to teach you a lesson. And what do you do? What do you do? You buy more socks!" With that she walked away.

I stood there for a second with the same dumb look on my face. I look down at the bag of socks on the floor she dropped at my feet. I turn my head trying to peer into the bag. There were all types of socks. Foot socks. Work socks. White Socks, black socks, sports socks. I bent over to get a better look and picked up the heavy bag. I pried  the plastic bag open by the handles.

I smell into the bag, "Hey Mimie!",I yell "Are they clean?"


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Christopher Fusaro. The author of Captain Imperfecto.

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