"Mating" Socks

Growing up, we had a big oval wicker laundry basket with handles and it was always full of socks. The sock basket. If we needed a pair of socks we'd simply dig through the sock basket . When there was no pair in sight we were forced to wear what my Mom called clown socks. They didn't have to match. Often I would get the chore of what we called "mating" socks. This would generally consist of dumping all the socks on the livingroom floor and dividing them up into piles of like colors, "mating" as many as possble then putting the "unmated" socks back in the basket. As far as I knew every household did this.

In my early adulthood, for reasons I can't recall, the sock basket came up in a conversation and it soon became clear that not everyone grew up 'mating" socks. They looked at me as if I'd participated in some depraved sock reproductive ritual. For a moment I felt ashamed, but from what I could remember there was absolutely no reproducing going on, more of a slow methodical elopement perhaps. Our socks were quite enlightened. Color, texture and gender blind. I secretly vowed at that moment that I would never have a sock basket of my own. Twenty some years later I know of only three rogue socks in my laundry system and if thier "mates" (perhaps it's a British term) don't appear soon they're done for. My Mother can never know this, however, it would become apparent that I didn't inherit all of her legendary thrift and resourcefulness. My parents generation never called it recycleing. I vaguely remeber them using a saying that went something like this; use it up, wear it out, make it do or go without.