Folding the Stupid Socks

It all started innocently enough.  I was tired of socks that slip down.  I wear Birkenstock sandals almost constantly, because I have had arch and many other foot problems and the podiatrist told me I should wear them all of the time.  But I prefer wearing them with socks.  Socks that don't slip down. Socks that don't have the toe flapping out in front of the sandal.

So, feeling a bit righteous, I ordered a pair of black organic socks.  I followed the sizing guidelines, and this pair fit OK, but it was just a tad too small.  But, YAY, it didn't slip down.  So, I decided to order some more pairs of the same brand of socks.  It was easy to tell the smaller socks from the larger ones, so folding them after doing the laundry wasn't too bad.  Until some of them seemed to shrink a bit more than the others in the washer and dryer.

But, of course, now that I had decided that these socks worked, I was even more annoyed at the other socks that I had that kept slipping down.  But you can't really throw out socks that are still usable, just because they are annoying.  So, I kept wearing them.  Until the great garage sale and subsequent clothing donations.  Aha!  A valid way to get rid of usable socks - donate them to people who need them.  People who wear sneakers shouldn't have the slipping down problem. Most people seem to wear closed-in shoes and should appreciate usable socks.

Then, because I don't do laundry that often, I needed more black socks.  So I bought another batch of black organic socks, just like the larger ones I had gotten before.  Exactly like them.  Well, not so much.  If you wear a lot of black clothing items, you know that black isn't always the same color.  One black may be a bit grayer than the other black.

So now folding socks after doing the laundry has become much more complicated.  I could just ignore the various sizings and shadings of the very similar black socks.  But, I have to fold socks near outdoor light, so that I can pick out the pair of navy socks that I sometimes also wear.  Wearing one navy sock and one black sock is definitely noticeable, once you are out in sunlight.  But, in natural light the difference between blacks also becomes apparent.

So now, since I am a bit OCD about socks, I spend way too much time trying to match black socks.  Way too much time.  I spend way too much time folding the stupid socks.