After much deliberation I have come to a conclusion. The worst part of parenting is: socks. No, really. I consider myself a thrifty woman so, in my mind, the average cost of a child's pair of socks is $1. The average number of times a child wears a pair of socks is 2.5 times. So as I carry a load of laundry up the stairs I know I will have 4 unmatching socks, equaling $4. I will then place the four unmatching socks in the blue bag of lost socks to be held until the appropriate sock is located.
This blue bag of missing socks would be worth approximately $374 should every sock could be found. It's value is growing at impressive rate of 4 socks per day or $28 a week. That is a weekly increase of 7%, if only it was positive interest I would invest my life savings and be rich before the year is out.
For now, I carry my laundry basket up the stairs and as I fold clothes I find stray socks. Today I have found the magical lost sock that I recognize and know where to find it's mate. I hold that sock in wonder. Where has it been? In its absence, did it travel to exotic locations? Why didn't it just choose to stay in that remote place? Has it returned to bring us new wisdom?
I turn to find the ever growing blue bag of lost socks. I find its perfect match. I place them together and fold them so they will never be separated again.
Then, I look at the two socks.
In Neverland, lost boys go and never have to grow up, time stands still for them. The blue bag of lost socks is quite the antithesis of Neverland. In the Blue Bag of Lost Socks, time rushes forward. As I look at the two socks, together at last, never to be parted again, I realize that those two socks will not fit on the foot of any of my children. These socks have either shrunk or my children have grown since these were worn. My heart sinks. I have waited months, maybe years to find these two, to put them together, there is no way I am going to take this perfect pair and throw them in the trash! So my mind washes with choices. Give them away? No one wants used socks, and now that I look at them they are stained from playing in mud puddles, and if I look closely enough I might acknowledge that one is a bit smaller than the other. Maybe the socks are different sizes, too. Hmmm, lets call it a victory for mom, pull out a baby doll, tell the kids I got them new clothes for the baby and move on.
Now in the off chance that I find the perfect pair that will still squeeze on a daughter's foot, I will relocate these lucky two into a girl's room. Placing the two in a drawer I will think fondly on how, in the early morning to come, I will be able to excitedly find them and help my daughter place them on her feet. So in the rush of the morning, I have immense patience with my daughter as she refuses to wear approximately 3-7 outfits presented to her, because I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that once she is clothed I have socks for her feet! There will be no last minute rushing around, digging through couches or under mattresses, not today. There is a lucky pair, simply waiting in the darkness of the drawer for me to reach in and be in need of them. Once my daughter is finally dressed in the first outfit I presented her almost 25 minutes ago, I turn, reach in, feel the rush of accomplishment sweep over me, pull out the beautiful socks and present them to my daughter. With all of this satisfaction in my heart I turn to my daughter who simply glances at the two and states, "Those socks are itchy, I don't like them."
Now the broken heart of moms, due to this diabolical sock scenario, is a widespread issue. Moms don't talk about it because their hearts are raw with loss and rejection.
The makers of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" got it right: spray on shoes. Seriously if someone invents this and charges $1000 per foot for each baby, moms would go wild. In two years I believe I would be breaking even. On top of that think of all of the time that will be saved searching for lost shoes, tripping over shoe piles, and digging through lost sock mountain. The possibilities of what could be done in all of that saved time is overwhelming. There is no doubt world peace would come to be if only the moms of the world were not searching for socks. I know my home would be more peaceful.
Now according to CNN the calculated cost of raising a child over 18 years is about $250,000. In my mind 1/3 of that money goes to food, the majority of which gets thrown to the dog because it was too hot, too cold or too spicy. Another third goes to buying plastic toys that also get thrown in the trash within 57 minutes of being purchased. And the last third goes, of course, to buying socks.
I am a mom of low ideals. A bath once a week is completely sufficient. Cleaning the house is completely optional, unless company is coming over, then you rush around and convince yourself that with an hour of cleaning before they walk through the door and enough sprays of Fabreeze, no one will ever suspect you hadn't thought of cleaning since the last time they stopped by. So in my mind the answer to the sock ordeal is simple, on Sunday morning find a pair of socks and place them on your child's feet. The next Saturday night (just before their bath) take the pair off and throw them away. There is no use washing the socks because if you do you will simply return to the cycle of losing socks. In this scenario at least the child wore the socks for 7 days, increasing the average of the life of the sock 280%. Everyone wins.
The complication with this is teachers. In preschool, teachers are very attentive, too attentive really. If a mom were to send in her child wearing the same socks for 7 days, everyone would know! Forget all the confidentiality crap, because you and I both know that every parent in that school would be hearing horror stories of the mom who sent her daughter to school with the same socks for 7 days. Within the year, the story would increase to include a lack of bathing, ripped and soiled clothes AND unchanged socks that the child must have been wearing since birth. All of the details would get embellished but no doubt the name of the family would be carried along with the urban legend for as long as the story circulated; HUFFMASTER would become synonymous with stinky and those poor younger children would be scarred for life.
So of course, to keep my younger children from being scarred for life, I invest (according to CNN) approximately $83,000 in socks.
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