Socks

Heather’s feet are not much larger than our 11-year-old daughter’s so I often mistake her socks for Meaghan’s. Frequently I put Heather’s socks in Meaghan’s drawer and vice versa. When this happens, they never miss a chance to have a good laugh at my expense.

The other day, however, Heather looked at Meaghan’s feet and said, “Hey, those are my socks!”

Meaghan looked down and then looked up with a sheepish grin.

Caught!

So, this is me doing my little Dance of Vindication. It looks a little like the hokey pokey, where I put my right bosom in and out and then shake it all about. Yes, poetic justice.

Now that I’m on the topic of socks I should mention a few other interesting points.

1. I hate it when I step on so much as a droplet of water in my socks, so most days I’ll change my socks at least once (and sometimes, twice).

2. I wore footies that had pink yarn balls that protruded out the back ankle when I played tennis in high school.

3. I was told once that, to be “in style”, I needed to match my socks with my shirt, so I often wore green socks with gray trousers (or socks with argyle patterns) during high school. Yeah, I was one hep cat.

4. I also think someone could make a lot of money if they designed socks for giraffes to wear.

I was going to go in a whole different direction, about how Troy can’t figure out which socks are mine and which are Meg’s, but then I remembered this joke, told me by our dear family friend Roberto years ago. And I know Troy isn’t expecting ME to tell a joke. So here we go:

“A recent arrival to New York, a Spanish-speaking-man needed to buy some new socks. So he wandered through the neighborhood where he was staying until he happened on a likely little shop. It was small, and manned by a lone elderly gentleman behind the counter.

Now the lone clerk only spoke English, and our visiting friend knew not a lick of English. So the visitor began to mime and in vain, trying to get his point across. The clerk dragged out item after item, but no socks appeared on the counter.

Both parties began to get increasingly agitated and annoyed with the other. Miming turned into flailing arms and frustration.

Finally the customer tried one last valiant mime and a virtual light-bulb seemed to go on over the clerk’s head. He shuffled off to the back room and re-appeared with a bundle of dusty socks.

Seeing the socks, the customer exclaimed “Eso si que es!”

And the clerk glared at him balefully and asked curtly “Why didn’t you just spell it for me in the first place?”

The end.

(If you don’t get it, say what the customer said out loud. Spanish is phonetic, you can do it!)