Wednesday, February 23, 2011

I'll Sock It To You. (Literally a Blog on Socks.)

Every day I have to put on socks. I go to bed sockless, even though initially, the bed is cold. I deal with it, okay. But then I get up the next morning. I walk around the apartment. I eat breakfast. I drink coffee. I try to sit down and write but I can’t because my feet feel like ice-packs. You know, those big plastic blue things people put in coolers instead of ice. Yes. That’s what my feet feel like. They feel like hard unmovable cold bricks. So I have to wear socks.

Which, is actually pretty cool for the most part, instead of walking I get to slide to the refrigerator or bathroom or couch. Us having a wood floor and all.

But wearing socks every day makes me have to do more laundry. And my toes can’t breathe as easily. And I get those little fuzzy things in-between my little piggies—though they never go to the market or go wee wee wee (if they did, well, I’d probably enroll myself in a mental institution).

But aren’t socks just really weird when one stops to think about it? They’re actually quite funny. Two identical pieces of cloth we pull over our feet so our feet can keep their distance from our shoes or the floor or from feeling like ice. And did you know they have stores dedicated just for socks!?! How odd. I mean does one think about socks so much that they feel the need to want to shop just for them?

“Hmm, I feel like buying something today, what haven’t I treated myself to in a long time. Oh, I know, my feet have really been yearning for a new pair of socks!”

Even the word itself is weird. Where did that come from?

“In the 20th century nylon became popular for stockings because of its strength and elasticity. As men's pants grew longer, socks became shorter, with the word "sock" replacing "stocking" for these smaller foot coverings.”

Okay. That makes sense, but it doesn’t explain where the word “stocking” came from. That word is just as strange.

“The word stock used to refer to the bottom "stump" part of the body, and by analogy the word was used to refer to the one-piece covering of the lower trunk and limbs of the 15th century—essentially tights consisting of the upper-stocks (later to be worn separately as knee breeches) and nether-stocks (later to be worn separately as stockings)."

Thank you Wikipedia. Without that I may not have been able to continue through my day. I now feel relieved to know the origin of the stocking.

But to be perfectly honest the sock isn’t my problem as much as my blood, okay, not really my blood but my circulation of blood. It seems to not like to reach my fingers or my toes.

As my aunt used to say, “cold hands, warm heart.”

Which makes sense biologically and personality-wise (not that I’m necessarily a warm person, but that’s probably because I wear socks and gloves to prevent the whole “warm heart” thing from taking over).

I don't really know where I was going with all of this. Really I was just complaining to myself about my cold feet. And not "cold feet" like I'm scared to do something or anything or everything. Cold feet as in literally freaking cold, like the depths of the antarctic sea.

Why! oh Why! Can't I have a heated floor? Or better circulation? Or socks that don't leave fuzzies and that let my piggies breathe?

(It's also strange to call toes little piggies, but I'm not going to go there today).


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