Seriously, Where Do Those Missing Socks Go?

Like most people, I have drawers of mismatched socks in every color and size. There's boy's sports and girl frou-frou socks, men's argyle, ladies scrunchy and running socks, and even a few that don't even belong to our family.

After a couple of months of hanging onto mismatched socks, most people will simply give up and find some other use for them. Crafty type people will turn orphans into sock monkeys or sock puppets. Non crafty types use them to dust or wax the car. Still others donate their mismatched socks to the Goodwill, reasoning that a poor person doesn't mind wearing mismatched socks rather than no socks at all. (News flash: poor people also have drawers of their own mismatched socks they are trying to get rid of.)

And then, there's the people like myself, who are eternally optimistic that eventually the missing socks will show up and can be reunited with their mates.

I've done a great deal of research on the missing sock phenomenon. There's plenty of theories floating around the internet about aliens, black holes, and time travel; a few people even suggested that leprechauns or the sand man sneaks in at night to steal the missing sock.

While these theories are humorous and rather entertaining, I wanted the real reason why my socks turn up missing on laundry day.

There really isn't a black hole

Socks really don't vanish into thin air, you know. They merely go somewhere else. That somewhere else is one of two places, neither which is a black hole or another planet.

How many times have you had to untangle a piece of laundry that has wrapped around the agitator? If you have ever run your fingers beneath the agitator ~ this is the big paddle in the center of the machine ~ you will notice a half inch gap. Your socks can easily slip through that space to wrap around the basket support.