Holey Socks

Have you ever noticed that your dryer eats your socks? To my horror, I found out that in America it doesn’t matter how many socks you buy - you never have enough of them to pair. My daughter was the first one in our family, who said, “I think the dryer eats them.”

Back in school, we had a "Home Ec" class where we were to learn to mend socks, cook and sew. I learned many things, but mending socks was something that required more patience than I ever knew. One morning, I noticed a little hole on the big toe, but, shrugged my shoulders and carelessly put on my new shoes, leaving the house with a smile. Nobody will ever notice. If not for my aunt Fisa, I would have never learned the lesson. In Russia, we always take our shoes off when we enter the house. My aunt looked down first and then up straight at my face and said, “Lida, one day a young boy will take you on a date and will hold your hand, while you are balancing on the rail road rail (in Russia, it is very romantic to walk on the rails holding hands). Imagine, if this very shoe gets stuck in the rail? That boy will save your life, taking your shoe off, but he will never come back. He will never want to date a girl with a hole in her sock.”

Since then, I never had holes in my socks. That was how HOLEY socks became HOLY: it doesn’t matter how carefully you cover the problems - sooner or later they become known.

Every time I put socks on, I smile, remembering my aunt. I wear holy socks, and I am free from holes.

But the dryer still puzzles me; it eats socks that do not even have holes - and then I still have to find the right socks to wear, just like in Russia.