Party Socks

I went to a St. Patrick's Day party over the weekend (since St Patty's Day falls on a Saturday this year, the party was on the previous Saturday). I got dressed in a bit of a rush (unnecessarily as it turns out) and so I grabbed a pair of gray socks that are among my very best. Old Reliables, I call them. They've got the nice black border at the top, the fluting on the sides. A more handsome set of stockings one could not hope for. Over these I donned my dressy black shoes and off I went, just in time to wait for R, who, God bless her, came out 15 minutes later. Off to the party we went.

Once there, I saw a mess of sundry shoes at the front door, and saw R removing hers, so I put two and two together and proceeded to ask her what to do. She suggested that I remove my shoes, and I did so. We went into the party area and enjoyed festive party food, refreshing drink and delightful, shoeless company. It was all going fairly well until about two hours into the party, when I looked down at the floor and noticed a familiar looking toe staring up at me. It was my own toe, exposed by a forgotten hole in my sock.

Great. So now I spent the rest of the party hiding the offending digit with my other foot, scanning the assemblage for other holes in other socks, hoping that seeing one, I might not feel so out of place. Unfortunately (from my viewpoint), the room was full of the finest specimens of hosiery America has to offer. These people had covered their feet with gorgeous, pristine, mint-condition socks, the like of which one wouldn't expect to find outside of Beautiful Sock magazine. Even the children running through the crab dip had perfect socks on their little feet.

It was all a bit disconcerting. Nobody said anything nasty about my threadbare footwear, not even R. Of course, she would never say anything unkind about me. But the fact is that I may not be able to show my face or feet to those people for awhile. I think it is quite possible that right now, somebody who was at that party is posting to his or her blog about "Old Rag Sock". I just hope this doesn't reflect badly on R. She shouldn't suffer guilt by association. Her only fault was in not checking my socks before the party. How could she have known?

The sad thing is that the gray socks, as shockingly inappropriate as they were for party exposure, are typical of my sock supply. It's sad, and it's strange, too. Strange because there is no good reason that my socks should all have holes in them, but, by and large, they do. Why, even now, as I look down at the black socks I'm wearing, I see a hole large enough to admit a basket of grapefruit. In fact, these socks developed a hole the very first time I wore them. Who knows why. It isn't as though I have razor-sharp toenails. I don't wear socks that are six sizes too small. I don't grab the top of the sock and pull up with all my might. All I do is carefully put them on my feet. My only guess as to why these stupid things develop holes is that they are sewn with Mission Impossible threads in the toes. That is, the threads are designed in such a way that a small explosive charge in the fibers causes the threads to self-destruct 15 seconds after I put them on. But why would anybody design socks to partially self destruct? Who would do such a thing?