2009-09-18 - Sock Osmosis

I don't know about you but my sock drawer houses what some would call a disproportionate amount of odd socks.

This is chiefly due to a little known phenomenon known as sock-osmosis, it is the transfer of socks from places with high concentration of socks, to areas with a lower concentration, in an effort to achieve sock equilibrium.

As an example, obviously your sock drawer is an area of high sock density, however under your bed, behind the washing machine, and down the side of the sofa are areas of lower sock density, hence why over time socks will gravitate to these locations, among others, in fact any area with a low sock density is a potential sock trap.

Quite why sock osmosis only seems to affect single socks of a pair is an answer that so far has eluded even the cleverest minds, and very few viable theories have even been postulated....

The end result is of course that throughout a typical human lifespan we can expect to lose dozens of socks to sock osmosis, the only truly foolproof way to cope, or at least lessen the impact, is to make sure that you only ever buy one particular type of sock, thus negating the need to pair them. However such restrictive sock buying regimes rarely prove practical in the real world.

The most curious feature of sock osmosis is that some socks will always remain in the sock drawer, either through loss of its significant other, rendering it useless, or due to some unfortunate colour scheme or novelty motif that has long since out-lived it's comedy value. These are known as sticky-socks.

Some people believe that you should periodically remove and dispose of sticky-socks to prevent the possibility of a critical-mass situation wherein a person finds themselves in the unfortunate position of owning only sticky socks, with no viable socks to actually wear. Other people believe that removal of the sticky-socks is a bad idea as it will encourage the loss of more useful socks, thereby actually accelerating the onset of a sticky-sock critical mass scenario.

In summary, I suggest you keep an eye on your socks, there is more to them than meets the eye.