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What My Unmatched Socks Say About Me
Some chores are avoidable. Matching socks isn’t one of them.
According to legend, the Sock Basket is about two decades old. It’s lived in at least four different places. It has been with the Sock Mistress, which is what the socks call me, for a lifetime. The Basket came with me when I bounced from apartment to apartment, then ultimately settled with me into comfortable married life.
The Basket is dark brown plastic. Though scratched and worn, it shines when the light hits it just right. You can buy a nearly identical one on Amazon for the oddly specific price $31.20. It is an object of such utilitarian mediocrity that it boasts not a single review.
The Basket will hold your laundry without complaint for as many years as you need it to. For me, it’s held legions of unmatched socks — cotton, wool, nylon, and fleece — for my entire adult life.
The earliest socks have no memory. They are old, worn, and content to exist in The Basket as nothing more than a collection of texture and color. The newer socks cling to what remains of their dwindling identity. They whisper of a time they were displayed in Old Navy or Marshalls, a perfect pair among hundreds. They speak reverentially of how I plucked them from purgatory, reliving their brief, shining moment as Chosen Ones.
