Things I Don't Understand and Probably Never Will

[Louis VI the Fat]

Socks. I don't understand how to manage socks.



My washing machine insists on eating one, and only one, sock every time I do the laundry. This I can live with, I considering it a ritual sacrifice to Hare Zogba, God of abandoned widows, of lefthanded goatmilk skimmers, and of washing machines.


The real problems are trying to maintain matching pairs.
If I buy my socks all as variations on the theme 'black', then I can never find any matching pairs out of the laundry pile. They all look too similar. This similiarity instantly changes into laughable dissimilarity exactly at the moment after I left home in a hurry and stare down at my feet in the metro on my way to work or a date.
If I buy socks with little prints on them then I can find matching pairs. But I'll look like an imbecile when wearing them.
If I simply buy thirty pairs of exactly the same socks, as I once did, my washing machine still manages to make 'm all come out differently, which returns me to dilemma 1 above.