Where Do All the Missing Socks Go?

Contrary to popular belief, there isn’t a sock monster living in your dryer gobbling up as many socks as he possibly can before you can quickly match them with each other before he gets more. There isn’t a type of Bermuda triangle in your dryer either that zaps up socks that come close to it. So where do all of those socks go? You know, the ones that seemingly disappear from your laundry inexplicably? My wife and I have a tendency to believe that our teenage son has something to do with some of the disappearances, but we’re pretty sure our dryer is not eating our socks. After all, they really aren’t missing, they are just misplaced.

Misplaced before they even get to the dryer.

In our house, my wife and son take their socks off in other rooms besides the rooms where the hampers are. The teenager, especially, takes his socks off in any number of rooms throughout the house. He has no preference as to what room he takes off his socks. I have actually found socks from the same pair in two different rooms of the house while collecting them for a run in the laundry. I don’t know how that happens but it does. My wife, on the other hand, is more predictable. If she takes her socks off in a room without a hamper, it’s usually the living room and they are usually easy to find. This doesn’t mean that they are always found. We have two dogs, too, which might account for why some of the socks never make it to the wash, but I’ve never actually seen either one of them with a sock. This doesn’t mean that they don’t stick to the bottom of their feet and end up outside. Who really knows? It’s just not the dryer’s fault. Sometimes they never even get to the washer because they sneak away when you are loading it and end up either on the side where you can’t possibly reach it with your arm or behind the freezer, where again, you can’t reach it with your arm.

Misplaced on their way out of the dryer.

After all, they are a pretty small item to keep track of. If you are like most people, you wash and dry your socks with other clothes, not separately. So, you are usually taking big pieces of clothing out of the dryer at the same time you are trying to get to the elusive socks. Sometimes, you don’t get all of the socks. They end up being dried again with the next load, but they aren’t missing, they are just waiting to come out of the dryer because you didn’t see them. Or they might be hiding up on the little shelf the interior of the dryer has when the drum stops just right. Sometimes they want to go for another spin. And, of course, there are those times when they actually try to get to the laundry basket but somehow end up on the floor right next to it and you don’t notice until you go back to the laundry room for your next load.

Hiding in other laundry.

This is where most of the misplaced socks end up, at least in our house. I can’t tell you how many time I have pulled one out of a pillowcase or put on a pair of jeans only to find a sock falling out of the bottom when I pushed my foot through. You know those deep fitted bed sheets? The ones that you can’t possibly successfully fold no matter how hard you try? I purposely run my hand through all corners of those every time I fail to fold one just to make sure there aren't any socks in it. I have found them hiding in the deep pockets. And, I always check the pillowcases. Found one in a pillow case just today as a matter of fact. Static cling, of course, is a wonderful deterrent in your ability to find all of the matching socks. Those suckers stick to just about anything if you’ve got enough static in your bundle of clothes you just took out of the dryer.

End up in another load only to never find each other again.

Because of leaving them in the dryer, or being separated on the way to the washer or dryer, some of the misplaced socks just never find each other again. They are just misplaced, however, not missing. My wife used to have a box in the hall that was full of socks that were just mismatched. I suppose one of the most difficult tasks for a mother of two with two additional stepchildren at the time was to find the time to actually match up socks. I gave the teenager the chance to make a quarter for each pair he could match up in the box a few years ago and he actually made quite a few dollars and had a surprising few socks that were lonely at the end of his task. Which just goes to show you, the majority of them aren’t missing, they are just misplaced.

Last year, I only truly misplaced one sock. The wife lost a couple, and the son lost a few more than a couple, but I have only one lonely sock in my sock drawer patiently waiting for its mate to arrive. I am truly perplexed as to where it went. My only conclusion is that it was a summer sock and sometime between the transition between summer and fall clothing it found a place to hide in something I won’t wear for a couple more months. I know it’s not lost. I know the dryer monster didn’t eat it. I know it wasn’t sucked up into some vortex, and I’ve checked behind the washer and the dryer, so I know it’s not there. It’s just misplaced for now. The others, I couldn’t tell you really. I’m only obsessive about my laundry. On the occasion when I do my son’s laundry, or my wife’s, I have no real knowledge of how the socks went from the foot to the hamper. I usually just keep mine on until I’m ready for bed, then they go straight to the hamper. As I’ve said, my wife and son don’t do that. They’re the ones that open up so many more opportunities for their socks to go missing. I, on the other hand, know where they go, so I take steps to prevent them from disappearing. After all, have you seen the price of a good pair of socks these days?