Sock Thief

Everyone knows of the grouchy dryer that steals socks. I'm not sure his theme song is as cool, ("I love socks!") but everyone has had a run in with him sometime in their life, and it's never cool to find one of your favorite socks has been eaten by the big, grumpy, laundry machine.

Well, this past weekend I have discovered that it might not be the dryer stealing my socks after all! Instead it's a bigger (well, taller), meaner, leaner, sock eating human. Ahh! Who could it be you ask? Well, let me explain...

I grew up in a household of five people, three of whom are men. That means LOTS of socks. For a short period of time, we all wore the same type of socks, the typical mid calf, white, everyday sock. I quickly ran away from that fashion faux pas, but not before the dot system was introduced to our family. In order to be able to tell whose socks were whose, my mother came up with a system in which she sewed small dots on the ends of each sock, the color of the dot corresponded to the person it belonged to. The breakdown was as follows:

Dad: Gold (not yellow!)
Mom: Pink
Rob: Red
Stephen: Green
Theresa: Blue

This system seemed clever enough, and helped us to keep track of our socks even when the dryer decided to devour them.

Well, it's been some years now, all the children have moved away, and the dots are slowly fading out of our wardrobes. That is everyone's except for my brother Stephen's. He still owns many of his old socks from high school, and he has even been witnessed stealing other people's socks!Notice the color is NOT green. Sorry Mom, you child is the grouchy sock stealer, and he has gone after YOUR socks. Who knew he ever looked so pretty in pink?!

So, I apologize to my dryer for any accusations, and I will always be sure to check with my brother before I blame him again.