Socks

As a computer draftsman in a manufacturing plant I work in an office, but I’m not really a white-collar worker. I only occasionally have to go out on to the shop floor, so I’m definitely not a blue-collar worker either. I like to think I’m somewhere in between, sort of a chambray-collar worker.

As a result of my middle of the corporate ladder status my typical work attire for the longest time has been a polo shirt with a pair of Dockers khaki pants transitioning to a pair of brown or tan steel-toed shoes with some brown socks. At first the socks were 6 packs of plain cotton dress socks, but then I started buying a couple of three packs at a time with brown or tan socks containing patterns to spice things up: argyle, stripes, dots, etc. The 6 pair of brown socks were stuck in the drawer and I rotated them by placing the freshly laundered ones on the bottom of the existing clean ones, trying not to wear the same pair more than once during a week. Not because I was afraid someone would call me on it, but like rotating your car’s tires, it evened out the wear.

This plan has worked out pretty good, usually as soon as a hole develops in the toe seam or on the bottom at the ball of the foot, the rest of socks from the same 3-pack would fail in the same fashion a short time later. Somewhere along the line a set of 3 outlasted the other set by a large margin, so instead of needing all six socks at one time, sock purchasing became staggered. As soon as the second sock of a pack failed in quick succession, it would be time to buy another 3-pack.

As luck would have it, two weeks ago, socks started wearing out. The first one went, then a couple days later the second developed a hole. The very next day, sock number three gave out as well. I did not immediately go to the store and buy a new 3-pack of brown socks, I considered it, but then I did the math. At this point I was down to just under 40 working days left and I wasn’t really going to wear the tan safety shoes after that, so with my remaining 3 pairs of socks I would need to get just a little more than 12 wearings out of each. When I ride the bicycle to work I normally just keep my dark gray cycling socks on during the day, so that number will get reduced every time I ride in. I think I can make it until March 2nd.

Will the brown socks last, the tension is palpable, stay tuned.