Miscellany

My Socks Life

For Rima Montoya, with thanks

I tend to give socks a lot of thought. This habit of mine began when my eye caught a picture of some medieval or renaissance chap wearing tights that were not only fanciful, but also different in color in each leg. All of a sudden I was made aware of how fixated we are on symmetry. Being an ornery kind of guy, I decided to go against the grain. But being also parsimonious, at least when it comes to fashion, I would limit my symmetry rebellion to my socks.

            I glanced at my socks drawer thinking whether I could combine a number of pairs in order to wear a given color on my right foot and a different one on my left. It could be done! Soon I discarded the gray and brown nondescript and self-effacing socks in my drawer, retained the more colorful ones, and started wearing different colors on different feet.

            It didn’t take long for my little fashion statement to catch some attention. People around me, noticing the asymmetry of my hosiery, responded with comments. The initial comments fell into two categories: one type tended to be “Your socks don’t match” (to the lameness of which I refrained from replying “duh!”), the other was “I bet you have another pair just like this at home.” I appreciated the attention, but had to challenge both responses. I pointed out that my socks were clearly at variance, but they were most certainly not mismatched.  Au contraire, I protested, my socks were carefully matched! Their varied colors picked up or played with other colors in my chosen outfit, a colorful shirt or a tie, say. This line of defense led me to chose carefully and pay more attention to that humble part of the attire than most people care to do.

            To meet the second type of comment gave me some pause, but just for a short while. It wasn’t, I insisted, quite true that I had another pair like the one I was wearing at home. In fact, I did not. I required socks of similar thickness and, yes, matchable, though not identical, patterns. One sock with horizontal bands in mostly muted colors would not go with a bright red one for that would be a mismatch and I was not into mismatched socks at all. Different yet compatible was my socks motto. The enterprise of choosing an appropriate if differentiated pair had become a challenge, a challenge that gave my mornings a bit of spice. I would give my socks as much attention as a fop gives his cravats. For this I needed an assortment of socks and as many possibilities as I felt were needed. It wouldn’t do to repeat a given pairing, lavender on the left and rose on the right for example, with the reverse pair (lavender right and rose left) the next day. Things had to be done seriously, and I craved variety. By acquiring three pairs of compatible socks, I reflected, I would be able to don three combinations on three consecutive days—while a mere two pair would offer me only one combination (considering irrelevant whether they were worn on the left or right foot). The mathematical formula for this system for choosing would be something like A + B = ab, while A + B + C = ab, ac, bc (where A, B, C signify equal sock pairs and ab, bc, ac the socks as worn). Thus three combinations for three pairs versus one combination for two pairs. With this discovery, needless to say, I was pleased as pie (or should I say “pleased as π”?) and consequently if I were wearing the combination ab, the socks left at home would not repeat it, but would be the combinations termed ac and bc in my formula. So no other “pair like it” at home.

            My rebuttal of the naïve comments I used to receive gave me a certain friendly notoriety and also, and more substantially, led a number of friends and family to make me presents of colorful socks. Indeed, I have not bought any socks myself now for quite a few years. I am proud of my collected socks, particularly those given me by my wife and one of her sisters.

            But, alas, something overtook me after a period of some years. It resulted, now that I reflect upon it, from a state of mental obfuscation. As I was feeling obligated to the daily chore of choosing a challenging divergent pair of socks, I rebelled against my rebellious initial decision to don asymmetrical socks and I stopped the fashion. I fell off the colorful wagon and into the humdrum habit of wearing undifferentiated socks. But after a while problems arose with my decision to revert to symmetry. Oftentimes friends still expecting my asymmetrical choices asked to see my socks and then, noticing o imagining their disappointment, I would explain that I had gotten tired of having to vary my socks with unforgiving regularity and was no longer practicing sock art. “It’s my sock therapy,” I would say, trying to pun my way out of my drabness. A pallid calm settled on my dressing routine and folks lost all interest in what covered my ankles. I had lapsed into convention and hoped, dimly, that the energy I had lavished earlier on sock choices would be channeled into something more productive. I trusted that now, surely, I would be able write that brilliant novel to propel me into fame and wealth. It might be titled “The Great Socksby.”

            That novel is still unwritten. This is due to the fact that I reverted to my old habit. The decision to return to asymmetry came one day, at an airport, a location where one normally gives little thought to socks, some quarter century ago, before the time when you have to take your shoes off at TSA checkpoints. I was between flights in the modern version of limbo that airport lounges are. I had a book with me, but could not concentrate because of the constant announcements raining down on my ears from the persnickety PA system. So I was daydreaming, travelling mentally to the places the piped-in voices were announcing: Pittsburgh, Rochester, Dallas…, when I spotted, seated on the row smack in front of mine, an extremely handsome lady of approximately my age who was wearing a pale-pink sock on one foot and a lavender one on the other. She had an air of elegance and poise that I found irresistible, not to mention the fact that she looked like Robin Wright in “House of Cards.” Could I at least find a line that would permit me to chat, if not flirt, with the woman while we waited for our respective flights? I looked down at my equal colored socks and my spirits fell like a piece of driftwood down Niagara Falls. I rued my conventionality, nay, I raged against it. Clearly I wasn’t going to tell that attractive lady anything as sorry as “I am sure you have another pair like these at home.” Damn, damn, damn! My irritation with myself prevented me from finding a witty comment with which to attract her attention. A few minutes of desolation went by, her flight was announced, she got up, tossed some graying tresses off her face, and disappeared into the jaws of her airplane.

What I was left with, however, was my repentant resolution to return to asymmetrical ankles. I was now convinced, born again you could say, and determined to pay due dual attention to my socks. And I have remained faithful to the trend ever. Ask me about my socks, please do.