Taking Inventory
You can't know what you've lost unless you know what you had.
Do a thorough sweep of your living space. Check under the furniture. Fold all the laundry.
When you're sure you've gotten everything, count how many pairs of socks you have of each variety. Write it down somewhere.
Set aside any loners in a bag with the date. Every time you find a new loner, check the bag. If it's matched, great, put them back into rotation. If not, add it to the bag, toss any unmatched socks which have been in there a few months, and update the date.
Limiting Wandering
When you take off your socks, walk to the laundry bin, then take them off and put them directly into the bin. If you are traveling, or have some other circumstance where you cannot put them directly into the bin, have a designated holding zone which you will remember to put into the bin. If the bin is overflowing, put them under something large like a shirt so they can't slip out.
Escaping the Black Hole
I'm still not sure if the washer or the dryer is the culprit, but we all know this is the most dangerous time to own socks. Careful scrutiny is your best chance of catching them.
Use something large to cover the entire laundry bin while in transit so nothing falls out. I usually throw a towel which needs to get washed over the pile.
Do a visual check of the machine and the floor every time you move the laundry into or out of a machine. Use your hands to check the inner bottom edge of the machine after emptying it to make sure it's truly empty, as well as any gaps in the machine where socks might fall.
When taking things out of the bin to fold, check that nothing has fallen out of the bin. Shake out all large items briefly over the bin to make sure no socks have gotten stuck inside while folding. Count all the socks again when done, and do a second search if the numbers don't match.
Assessing the Damage
You will lose socks.
My best streak was about a year. These days, I lose a sock about every six months.
But really, that's quite a good attrition rate against a black hole.
Budget for new ones and take better care of the ones who remain.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
I think I am too tired to inject this with the amount of humor it deserves.
An attempt was made.
Whatever.
Another day, another post.
I stumbled upon someone elses' daily blog yesterday in a vaguely similar vein, then got curious who else was out there before realizing "daily blog" is so heavily overindexed that it's unsearchable. Maybe that's for the better. Comparison trap and whatnot.
It was fun to see someone else is out there, posting like this, today. That's enough to scratch the itch.
I don't know if it's clear that I highly recommend this. It's been interesting.
- Rew