Let Me Sock It To Ya

"John, would you please pick up your socks?!"

These are not the words of my mother, lord rest her dubiously sainted soul, but my wife. My beloved wife.

It sounds as though she is chiding me for lack of ambition or gumption. And whilst I may be in need of such chiding, this is not the issue.

No, the issue is my socks. My literal socks. Not my metaphorical socks that speak of lack of character.

You see, my socks shed.

They shed when they are new, and they continue shed after interminable launderings. They just doggone shed and leave little reminders of their passing over the carpets. Which is somewhat strange since I usually wear slippers or what passes for slippers. But a second with the slippers off and they shed, and I suppose they still shed and somehow drop even with my slippers on.

But sometimes I do wander slipperless from room to room. It's not far in our little house, and I don't always put my slippers on despite the fact that I usually wear them to reduce pressure on my heel spurs. And so I leave little traces of my passings.

A semi sane person might ask why don't I simply change my sock brand. Well, sock it to me, but it's not so easy. It's not easy to be me or my socks or the carpet under my socks. And I have yet to find an alternate brand, for I must work within certain constraints such as needing them to be both long and arm.

Before I go on, it's time for you to see in all their glory the socks whereof I speak.

They are woolly and warm, which is nice, but the key for me is that they are long. They come up past my calfs and shins, almost to my knees.

For me, a most peculiar me, they are pretty well a mandatory part of my ensemble from later autumn to early spring.

It's because my shins get cold. More accurately, they feel cold. I can be warm, and even my feet might be fine, but my calfs feel cold. (Spellcheck doesn't like calfs, and I suppose it should be calves, but since I'm not a cow, I resist. I understand, however, that some readers, dear sweet gentle readers, might opine that my blog is a load of bull.)

I put this condition down to degeneration in my back, thus affecting the nerves which go down the legs, and I have some medical confirmation that this is, indeed, the case. I used to have a similar condition in my shoulders, and in fact I still do a little, but it was once worse. As a result of some physio on my upper back more than a decade ago, the shoulder problem was greatly reduced. The physio wasn't for this condition, but the side effect was the amelioration of shoulder coldness. So, we tried a similar procedure on my lower back. To no avail. Sadly.

And so it is that this sad specimen of a man is reduced to wearing long, woolly socks that cover his shins.

And so it is that these socks shed ... and shed ... and shed ... until they become holey and consigned to the heap. They do wear down easily, and I have just purchased four new pair to help get me through this winter by which end they will also be wearing thin.

How can they help but wear thin when they are forever displacing bits of themselves onto the floor?

And that's the story of my shins and socks and the wool-strewn pathways upon which I trod.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go pick up my socks. As it were.