Sock Control

I'd like to take a break from my usual high-faluting ways, what with me styling myself the 'King of this and that', and that, and instead today focus on the kind of issues that I guess most normal people have to face now and again.

I bought some new socks just before Christmas. They were plentiful and cheap, coming in impressive quantities (five) for a low, low price. (£2.99)

Anyone who knows me and pays undue attention to my feet will probably have observed that I generally wear white socks. I don't think that this choice makes too much of a fashion statement - in fact quite the reverse, I have read of disparaging suggestions that people who wear white socks are not to be trusted at all. I'm not sure why white socks have become the focus of such hostility, but there you go, people are strange.

In any case, in my pre-Christmas shopping expedition (in Primark, no less) I happened across the sock department. Five socks for not very many pounds. And I was very much in the market for new socks, as most of my old ones have broken out in holes. Replacements are required, and the time is right - here I am, in front of socks, in a shop that sells socks (not specifically a 'sock shop' as Primark sells many other accessories for the fashion-conscious man-about-town) and I do believe that I have £2.99 in my pocket. The stars are aligned tonight. I saw them and I wanted them and I took them and I paid for them.

In the days and weeks following said purchase, I have begun wearing these socks. They are comfortable and new, but in a concession to the views of people who think that the colour of your socks determines whether you are, or are not, a goat molester, my new socks are not white. In fact, they are black, which is sort of the opposite in many ways.

And my comfortable new black socks leave me with a problem. After all, the correct means of operation for white socks is easy to understand. Put socks on, enjoy day, take socks off at end of day. Next day, put them back on again. Repeat until socks become dirty, then wash socks and start again.

With black socks... no way to tell if they're dirty. So if I'm not careful, I'm going to end up wearing the same pair of socks every day for the rest of time. With no indication as to when the socks have become dirty, how am I to know when to change them? If I were to adopt a know-nothing attitude and "just change them every month", I may end up changing my socks before they are dirty. I may end up washing my socks too often, thus endangering the monkeys and the toucans and the dolphins of the rain forest.

Conclusion: Black socks have simply not been properly thought through. I can't be the only person with this problem, surely.