I get quite a generous ration of socks as part of my uniform. They are a basic, conservative blue colour, and quite decent quality. And as I just about always wear jeans and elastic-sided boots, you can’t see them anyway. All this means I just have a drawer full of loose, identical socks. Nice and easy - I just grab two each morning without even looking.
You have just met (indirectly) the infamous and wily Sock Gnome.
BEWARE!***
He is a dangerous and foul creature, never try to capture or get a glimpse of him for he is wily and infamous! In his infamous wily way, he is dangerous and most foul. BEWARE!
All socks are a temptation for him and he has an innate ability to find any mated pair of socks (mated as in “for life”) and undo the pairing by snatching away one of the two (the HORROR…!) from the pair.
He is described as being nondescript and very hard to recount. Beware! He makes a mockery of doing laundry and the accounting of all one’s socks at the end of the day is mocked by him.
If you ever encounter the Sock Gnome in the flesh, take care not to tempt him by the wearing of two socks at once for it may drive him into desperate acts of temptation such as bonking the sock owner and wearer over the head with his big, magic hammer! Beware!
Are you people insane? Confessing to having a sock, let alone several, can get you banned faster than anything around here! Don’t throw away all the time and effort you’ve invested in the SDMB just to… oh, right, those bags we keep our feet in. Never mind.
I urge you all to follow these above mentioned instructions when dealing with the wearing, caring, washing, and feeding of socks. Thank you very much!
Sock Tuckers? Trademark issues aside, can I just say “BAND NAME!”?
It sounds so wonderfully dirty.
The hell with my socks. I wanna know where my damn Tupperwear lids go.
Less than a year ago, I bought a whole new set of bowls and lids. I still have plenty of bowls, but the lids have gone AWOL.
It makes no sense. I only have two cabinets, so they’re not getting lost that way. My dishwasher can’t eat them, and it’s not like I carry them out of the kitchen. (I don’t loan them out.)
I can only speculate that Tupperwear lids, living lives of repression in my cabinet, secretly yearn for freedom. Too long have they been forced to contain moldy leftovers in cold, dark refrigerators. Too long have they been crammed together in stuffy cabinets!
Being slim, the lids can slip out the door, but the poor rotund bowls must be left behind. Maybe the lids promise them that someday they will return with reinforcements to free them all.
Or, perhaps the instinctive urge to join their kind in migration to their ancestral spawning grounds is too strong to resist. (During mating season, the “burp” calls can be heard for miles, or so I’m told.)
Whatever the reason, I can never find a damn lid and container to hold the leftover corn after dinner.
ahem
You have just met (indirectly) the infamous and wily Lid Gnome.
BEWARE!***
yada yada yada…
Were you a Marine? My boyfriend does the same thing, only with just the white socks.
Plus he has a 'weird" way of folding them, instead of bundling them into a pair.
I have work socks, dress socks, “fancy” socks, and “junk” socks. But like the OP, I find that my with just about every load, at least ONE sock from a pair has decided to skip town.
To me, socks are like sex. Tons of it about, and I don’t seem to get any.
PSSSSSSSSSSST
BTW, women (or men with long hair) if you take and cut those “old maid” socks into rings, they make cheap ponytail holders.
The stretchier socks work best of course, but even the cotton ones work pretty well.
More uses for old maid socks (from a crafty person):
Dust rags - slip an odd cotton sock over your hand and dust away.
Sachet - fill a clean odd sock with potpourri and tie a knot at the ankle. Stuff it in the corner of your dresser drawer, or loop it over a hanger in your closet.
Cat toy - same as above, but fill it with catnip.
As CanvasShoes suggested, ponytail holders. Or, cut the sock rings into strips and use them to tie up tomato plants (this is a good way to use odd nylon knee-highs in particular.)
“Undersocks” - on really cold winter days, like when you have to go out and shovel the driveway, add a layer of unmatching socks under your regular socks to keep your tootsies from freezing.
If you’re really crafty, there are a lot of patterns that use odd socks - you can make small stuffed dolls out of them, or the classic Sock Monkey (not to be confused with SockMunkey.)
One idea that I got from a magazine - it falls into the category of “too precious” for me, but hey, maybe you’ll think it’s perfect: clothespin your odd socks (especially the cute, colorful ones) to the top of your laundry room curtain rod, and stitch individual socks here and there onto the curtains. Theme curtains, if that’s your thing.
When the Terrible Teen was a little younger, and liked to play with Barbie dolls, we used to cut the foot parts off odd socks and discard them, then use the remaining fabric tubes as Barbie dresses. Slip it onto Barbie like a tube top, and tie a strip of fabric or ribbon around the waist.
Yes, I have WAAAAAAAY too much time on my hands, why do you ask?
They’re migrating to MY house. I have lids, upon lids, and MORE lids!!!, but the containers they’re supposed to fit seem to have run away from home with the missing socks.
It’s a conspiracy!!
After my next-to-last move a couple of years ago, I found I had oodles of extra lids for some reason. I tossed them all. Then I moved again, got some stuff that had been in storage and found the bowls, now sans lids. :grrrr:
Go to the baby ailse of your favored Department store,and buy a zippered net bag or two. I know Wal-Mart carries these. They are to put the babies socks in, and zip up so you don’t lose them. (Losing a babies socks SUCK. They’re so tiny, and cute, and pretty, and EXPENSIVE!) They actually make a good shower gift too, not many new parents-to-be think of getting any.
I think they sell larger, stronger versions of them in places too, but I’m not sure where. Maybe buy a pillowcase or two, and convert them yourself, or get someone good at sewing to do it for you? Sew a zipper on the top so you can throw your socks in, zip it up and tie it off. That should prevent losing the socks in the wash.
Throw bag and all into the dryer too. (Open the bag, and move the lump of wetish socks around so they’ll dry completely every now and then.) Or just dry all the socks out of the bag seperate. After they are dry, mate them and put them up. Maybe in their own special clear rubbermaid container in the bottom of your closet/under your bed?
Good Luck. It sucks to lose half of a unique pair of socks.
On the subject of uses for worn out socks. I just bought a pair of thick black knee high socks on sale this past summer, and snipped off the toes, cut a small slit in the heel for my thumb, stiched along the cut edges, and now I have a nice pair of knit black fingerless opera length gloves/arm warmers. 
You could do this with a pair of socks that have holes in the toes. They are really warm.
I have lids, too. Does anyone have my bowls? I never use the bowls without lids, it is really puzzling. I can understand losing the lid and the bowl, but where the hell are the bowls going on their own?
I have given up on good Tupperware. Every few months I by some more Ziploc [sup]tm[/sup] or Gladware [sup]tm[/sup] when I run out of bowls.
When I was a kid I always lost dice. Where are all the dice?
I swear it’s all the wicked work of GNOMES! I know they exist!
- Sock Gnomes
- Lid Gnomes
- Car Key Gnomes
- Computer Gnomes
- Money Gnomes
- The little “gnome that kicks you in the nuts” Gnomes
I categorically reject all the crafty orphan sock ideas listed above. Ruthlessly throwing away a (perfectly good!) sock is a joyous little reward for finishing the laundry. Has something to do with having to sort thru lid hell to find the perfect bowl to save that tablespoon and a half of gravy a thousand times.
Why, yes, dear Mum’s a pack rat, why’d ya ask?
What about the Underpants Gnomes?
- Underpants Gnomes
- the “I’m missing the super duper important company report and the meeting’s today!” Gnomes