Sock Basket Shame and Lies

Around our house laundry did not get done, it got started. We would put clothes in a hamper and it would get put in a pile until that pile got stuffed into the washer by my mom or by whoever was on laundry duty that week. It would be moved into the dryer and then more often than not pulled out of the dryer onto the floor in a huge unsorted pile. Where it stayed to be picked through and recycled into the clothing circle of life. Socks were not given any special attentions and they would be put into a jumbled sock basket to await a daily morning panic sifting and plucking of two that were close enough to get the searcher out the door to school. This was usually not a big problem because I wore pants and no one ever knew. They could only tell that I was wearing miss matched socks if I wore shorts then if anyone asked I would say something I thought was funny like that I had a pair just like them at home, or lie and tell the asker that I wore mix-matched socks because I suffered from bi-pedal ambidexterity and I couldn't walk without some differential tactile input from my feet. I know, I know, hilarious. When I started wrestling I didn't have any wrestling shoes and because of disease we were not allowed to practice barefooted. One day that meant I was wrestling in one knee high wool sock and one white athletic sock and I looked like a hobo or a home-school kid or something equally horrible. I was not thinking much of it besides the initial embarrassment of realizing that I would have to play fighting in crazy socks. My coach, however, was more concerned for me based on my ridiculous clothing, fearing it may be a sign of extreme poverty and not just systemic laundry laziness. After practice he asked me to stay after and he asked if I needed some money to buy socks. I was so embarrassed that he thought that I needed sock money that I made up a more ridiculous lie that I was having muscle cramps in my wool sock leg and I was just trying to keep it warm. He looked skeptical and he should have been and I should have just told him the story of the our families disregard for systematic laundry. The next day at practice I made sure I found some nicely matched socks and that day a kid a year younger than me gave me a pair of his own shoes and the socks were less of an issue.