RSS FeedMay 16 2008
Safe Socks — Rising to the Challenge of Cohabitation
Living with someone, even temporarily, is definitely the quick way to discover differences in idiosyncrasies.
Case in point… I needed to do my laundry a few days ago and offered to do some of Charlie’s at the same time. When it came time to put it away I was puzzled to discover Charlie had three separate sock drawers. I couldn’t figure out why one human being needed three drawers for socks. But he did have a massive bureau he wasn’t sharing with someone else. I figured the socks had simply expanded to fill the available space.
Upon closer study, there appeared to be one drawer of black socks, one of tan, and one of white. So, I put the clean pairs of socks in their respective drawers and thought nothing more about it until the following morning… when I woke to Charlie in a mild panic to get to a meeting and completely incapable of understanding the devastation that had been wrought upon his sock drawers since the day before.
Apparently the actual system is this–there is a drawer for “work socks”, one for “casual socks”, and one for “slummin’ around socks”. Somehow, I had managed to put every pair of socks I had washed in the incorrect drawer.
Charlie has since tried to explain to me in great detail what constitutes each of the three categories of socks. He might as well be speaking Latvian to me, for all I understand him.
Now, I would like you to know that I am trainable to a reasonable degree when it comes to cohabiting in a relationship. You want the toilet paper to hang a particular direction on the roll? Fine. You don’t want me to kill the DSL in the house by plugging a fax machine into the wrong jack? Cool. I’ll move the machine. You’d rather I not use your first edition Iron Man comic book as a coaster for my morning green tea? Whoops. Sorry ’bout that. Won’t happen again.
But I’m afraid I’m never going to be able to adapt to Charlie’s sock classification system. In the future, any clean socks of his are going ON TOP of the bureau and he can sort them appropriately to his heart’s content.
Living with someone, even temporarily, is definitely the quick way to discover differences in idiosyncrasies.
Case in point… I needed to do my laundry a few days ago and offered to do some of Charlie’s at the same time. When it came time to put it away I was puzzled to discover Charlie had three separate sock drawers. I couldn’t figure out why one human being needed three drawers for socks. But he did have a massive bureau he wasn’t sharing with someone else. I figured the socks had simply expanded to fill the available space.
Upon closer study, there appeared to be one drawer of black socks, one of tan, and one of white. So, I put the clean pairs of socks in their respective drawers and thought nothing more about it until the following morning… when I woke to Charlie in a mild panic to get to a meeting and completely incapable of understanding the devastation that had been wrought upon his sock drawers since the day before.
Apparently the actual system is this–there is a drawer for “work socks”, one for “casual socks”, and one for “slummin’ around socks”. Somehow, I had managed to put every pair of socks I had washed in the incorrect drawer.
Charlie has since tried to explain to me in great detail what constitutes each of the three categories of socks. He might as well be speaking Latvian to me, for all I understand him.
Now, I would like you to know that I am trainable to a reasonable degree when it comes to cohabiting in a relationship. You want the toilet paper to hang a particular direction on the roll? Fine. You don’t want me to kill the DSL in the house by plugging a fax machine into the wrong jack? Cool. I’ll move the machine. You’d rather I not use your first edition Iron Man comic book as a coaster for my morning green tea? Whoops. Sorry ’bout that. Won’t happen again.
But I’m afraid I’m never going to be able to adapt to Charlie’s sock classification system. In the future, any clean socks of his are going ON TOP of the bureau and he can sort them appropriately to his heart’s content.
I don’t get it. How can someone living in the state of bachelorhood you described in the last post be so … fastidious … about his sock drawer organization?
Thanks for keeping us up to date on your life – I love to read your writing, which always brings a smile to my face!
Sock drawers by-usage-types?? How in the world would you guess that? And what’s there to get in a tizzy about … you open the drawers and move them to where you think they should be. Are there special socks to wear to bed? What’s the difference between casual and slummin?
That sounds a bit like my OCD problem with straightening out the shopping cart mess in the nearest return thing to my car — in the WalMart parking lot.
If I have a couple pair of black, a couple pair of white, and about 4 pair of thin dress socks stacked in a drawer around my boxers and undershirts … then I’m doing good. I wear the dress socks with my steel-toed boots so I can get my feet back out of the boots … has nothing to do with wearing a suit.
Maybe Charlie and I are just confirmed bachelor material …
Brilliant conclusion. At this stage of my life, I simply couldn’t have such a detailed rendition of what socks go where….neither could Quentin Crisp be bothered. I think your solution was right on!!
One of the interesting aspects is that he was so “shuffled” by the change: alas, that would make me nervous.
But, Bravo to you. You found a solution and seemingly blew it off..that and his expectation that you should know the “sock criteria!”
Best,
Karen