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Writer's pictureLahna Greene

Scary Creative Thoughts: Socks

Updated: Apr 28, 2022


I love fun socks. Since I started volunteering at the charity thrift store, I've collected everything from woolly slipper socks with puppy faces to Mario and Luigi patterns. These are my distinguished gentleskeleton socks.


While doing laundry, I always make sure to match up my husband's socks. If I don't, he'll often go digging through his sock drawer in the morning with his phone light on, looking for pairs. He's gotten it wrong before. I have to laugh at the spectacle, that he would rather do this than stick them together when they come out of the wash. He claimed it didn't bother him, and never asked me to match his socks for him, but I took up the task on my own, hah.


Now, I've stated before that the creative mind can be a frightening place. When I'm not mulling over current novel plotlines or character development (or allowing Disney classic tunes to play on repeat through my brain), my mind throws potential story concepts at me. Most of them are too wacky to entertain.


And earlier, while folding hub's boring socks together, I was attacked.


What if this gray sock used to be paired with a different gray sock instead of the one I'm pairing it with now? Would they care? Long for their true partner while I stick them with a new one? I would hate it if someone took my lover away and...


I caught myself here. I am not a sock god, meddling in the affairs of woven garments. Socks are inanimate. They cannot think or experience emotional attachment. This is a basic fact, but my creative side insists socks could have feelings.


This, ladies and gents, is the dark side. If want to keep faking normal, I have to slay these thoughts at inception. It's a daily struggle of ridiculous notions. Whenever it happens, my rational side has a mini panic attack that I'm finally losing it while my creative side is urging me to turn "sock feelings" into a short story. At least it would be funny.


If it were only the socks, I could laugh it off. But no, I've had similar thoughts while chopping veggies, watching bugs swirl down the toilet—you get the idea.


While I know all creatives experience this sort of weirdness on some level (this had to be how the plot of Ratatouille started), I do have to wonder where I fall on the zany scale. If anyone out there has had "sock feelings" concerns, congrats. You have a kindred spirit.


Keep on smilin'!

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