almost everyone who has ever worn them has asked this question at one time or another

Have you ever wondered what happened to all the mates to those single socks in your sock drawer?

Mankind has been pondering this mystery for...well, for as long as we've been wearing socks.

Aside from the fact that pairs or sets of objects automatically have a higher probability of being broken up simply due to the law of averages (or maybe it's Murphy's Law - I can never remember), single socks seem to disappear at a much higher rate than say, shoes or chopsticks. Everyone I know who has ever worn socks has eventually had one sock in a pair go missing, and usually they are never to be seen again. So where do they all go? And why socks? We've all seen the occasional single shoe on the freeway entrance ramp and wondered how it got there, but given the sheer number of missing socks people deal with in everyday life, the entrance ramps should be knee deep in them, right? Yet they're not in evidence anywhere.

(photo borrowed from here)

This conundrum has been puzzling me for some time now, so I've done what every other self-respecting person in the 21st century would do: I googled "missing socks".

It's a marvelous tool, Google. Back in the middle of the last century, my father was an editor and my mother was a teacher, and I grew up in a family where everyone was well-versed in the art of research. By around the age of six, all the Russell kids were expected to be able to look up words in the dictionary, and by the age of nine, capable of going to the library and conducting more in-depth research as needed. Fact checking is second nature to us Russells. Yet, Google did not exist back then, and Dad would have scoffed at the very notion of being able to type in a question and access more answers than you could imagine, but that is a story for another time...

So back to pondering the mystery of the missing socks.

What I found in my googling research is that there exists a wide variety of theories; some are totally out there and wild, but some sound so scientifically plausible and matter of fact that any normal person wouldn't even think to question them.  (Any regular readers of this blog have by now come to realize that normal does not apply here)

Here's what I found:
First up, the standard let's be serious and grounded about this: socks do not just "disappear" theories.

So why is this guy so bored?

• Scientific theory #1: Socks do not get lost in the dryer. The culprit is the washing machine. Supposedly, washing machine repairmen are always being called out to disentangle single socks from washing machine agitators. The recommendation is to put the socks at the very top of the load in the machine so they won't be pushed down to the bottom and tangled under the agitator. Personally, I've never found a missing sock under the agitator and nobody I know has either. And this theory doesn't explain the continuing loss of single socks in the age of front-loaders, which have no agitators at all.
• Scientific theory #2: Again, the washing machine is named as the culprit. If the socks are placed on top of the load, and the washer is overfilled, the socks (and sometimes even underwear) can float over the top of the washer tub when the machine is agitating and get sucked into the pump or get tangled in the motor. Other times they find their way into the drain. Or they can permanently reside  between the washer's basket and the machine housing. This still does not explain why socks go missing in houses with front loaders.
• Scientific theory #3: If you were to go right now and dismantle your dryer, you may find a few single socks, along with some underwear lying in a pile of lint under the dryer's tumbler. The theory is that small items like socks and bikini underpants make their way out of the dryer basket and into the blower housing via an open or loose lint screen. I'm not about to dismantle my dryer to disprove this one, but given the number of socks we've lost over the years, the blower housing would be so full of socks the dryer couldn't possibly work at all.

Now on to the less scientific, more commonly held beliefs:

• Unscientific theory #1: Inside your dryer vent lurks a worm hole, where individual socks are sucked in and spit out on the beach of the Island of Lost Socks. I like to think all my lost socks have been paired up in mixed marriages on a lovely beach somewhere, living happily ever after.
• Unscientific theory #2: Dryers can not only rearrange matter, they are also capable of short-range teleportation; single socks are transformed into coins and end up as spare change under your sofa cushions. Conversely, your lost car keys? They are now dryer lint. I'm not so sure about this one. If this theory were true, we would end up with random single socks we've never seen before.
• Unscientific theory #3: Weekly sacrifices must be made to the Laundry Gods.  This theory states that in order to keep things on an even keel, we must make sacrifices to the angry laundry gods, kind of like the sacrificial virgin being offered up to the angry volcano. Otherwise, by saving the socks by clipping them together or cleverly washing pairs in a mesh laundry bag in the effort to thwart the gods, you may end up inadvertently suffering their wrath. It could be a red t-shirt in a load of whites, or something worse. The laundry gods' wrath is not to be underestimated. What are a few missing socks compared to that?
• Unscientific theory #4: Tiny Ninjas come to steal your socks in the middle of the night. Here's a video explaining it all:

Personally, I have three cats, and I'm still missing socks.

• Unscientific theory #5: Evil Sock Monkeys are stealing socks to create a Sock Monkey Army hell bent on taking over the world. If you don't believe me, check out this photo:

(photo borrowed from this site)

In my research, I've also uncovered some historical evidence covered up for over 70 years, which seems to support this theory:

And I'm not the only one intrigued by this mystery. The Bureau of Missing Socks  is an organization solely devoted to unraveling the mystery of the single disappearing sock (no pun intended).

Of course, there is also some evidence that a new trend could be developing that could combat this age-old single sock problem:

Once celebrities get on the bandwagon, it could no longer be a sign of absent-mindedness or a disorganized household...it's now a Fashion Statement!

I think I'll go and take apart my dryer now.

a back to school tutorial: how not to do laundry

This post was originally published in 2008, and still gets the most number of reads per week of all my posts (followed closely by "Photo styling 101: How to roll towels like a pro"). The traffic around this post always increases exponentially in mid September (coincidentally, around the time newly-minted college students start running out of clean laundry and begin frantically searching the internet for instructions) so I'm rerunning it as a sort of public service message, or maybe a cautionary tale. So let this be a lesson to you!

How not to do laundry

   We have a system for doing laundry at Camp Cactus...the evolution of which seemed to happen rather organically, and naturally (meaning: nobody actually designed the system, it just sort of occurred; and said system's evolution has happened at an agonizingly slow pace, like the melting of the glaciers before global warming). Here's how it works:
Step 1: There are 3 baskets, beautifully handmade by child laborers highly skilled workers in China. One for WHITES, one for LIGHTS, and one for DARKS. Are you with me so far? Ok, so these three beautifully handmade baskets usually reside in our ridiculously huge bathroom, waiting patiently to be filled with the correct shade of dirty laundry. (This seems very simple and logical and easy to me...so why do so many people insist upon doing their laundry in one giant, washing machine- killing load? But, I digress...)

Alternate Step 1: See steps three and four for explanation.


Step 2: The now-full basket of dirty laundry is moved into the hallway outside the bathroom, waiting for someone (anyone?) to carry it down 2 flights of stairs, over 2 baby gates (a story for another time) to the basement laundry room/hovel to be washed until sparkling clean, or at least smelling like spring rain.


Step 3: The sparkling clean, smelling-like-spring-rain laundry is plopped warm and fresh out of the dryer into its beautiful and functional Chinese basket, carted back up two flights of now exceedingly steep stairs, over two baby gates (destined to someday cause one of us in our increasingly aged condition to break a hip), to the bedroom, where it is deposited in the middle of the floor. This location was chosen (again in some organic, evolutionary way) for its position relative to moving about the bedroom, meaning of course that anyone wishing to move about must step around it. Evolutionary timeline of this era: millions of years (okay...maybe a day or two or five) Which brings us back to Alternate Step 1: (see above) where dirty laundry waits not for an empty basket.

Step 4: After a few days sitting in the middle of the bedroom floor, the piles of dirty laundry have grown too big for the bathroom, and something must be done. So, the basket is emptied onto the largest flat surface available for folding.


At which time, it has started to resemble a giant sand castle molded in the shape of a hideous malformed lump, startling the lounging cat, and causing whoever faces the task of sorting (and sometimes even folding) this pile to sigh loudly and complain about the whole system.



There. All done. Now isn't that better? Stay tuned for my next tutorial: How not to fold sheets. Coming soon.

Price check at register 12...

Over at Bossy's Poverty Party today, they're talking about laundry detergent. It's expensive, but sometimes trying to save money on it results in dingy whites and faded colors. And dingy whites and faded colors make me feel, well, they make me feel all dingy and faded.

photo borrowed from here

One blogger suggested that you only need a fraction of the recommended amount of detergent. (Note that this tip came from a washing machine repairman who probably never does his own laundry) I've tried this, both in the interest of saving money and the environment. I was not impressed. Dingy. (Although when everything's dingy you don't always notice that it's also not clean) She also recommended using a very highly concentrated brand of detergent from Sears, and says that she's still using a box of it she bought a year ago.

This made me take a trip downstairs to the basement to peruse the labels on our detergent bottles. I used to buy whatever brand was on sale at the best price, figuring they're all pretty much the same, right? Until I bought Tide a few times on sale, and then went back to using All or Cheer or whatever was cheapest. Guess what? Yep, dingy, dingier, then after awhile, really dingy. (I love that word: D-I-N-G-Y!) So, now I buy Tide when it's on sale, and I stock up. We use the unscented, uncolored formula for all the clothes and towels and sheets because Dave thinks the regular formula makes him itch. Then we use the Febreze-infused formula to wash all the slipcovers and dog towels and bedding, because they stink. (sorry, pups - but it's true)

So here's what I noticed:

I rubbed my eyes, then looked on the back for the explanation...

Oh yeah. That really explains it.

Guess I'll be writing an email. I'll let you know what they say. In the meantime, check out Bossy's Poverty Party for a link to the Duggar Family website, where you can learn how to make 10 gallons of laundry soap for about $2...and they'll even throw in their famous Tater Tot Casserole recipe!

photo styling 101: how to roll towels like a pro

I admit it. Sometimes my thrifty nature gets to be a bit much. I don't like to throw things out, and tend to use things until they wear out or fall apart. Old socks are recycled into sweaters for my Santa dolls and Fairies, bottlecaps are turned into lamps, twigs and tree trimmings are fashioned into rustic furniture, and worn out T-shirts and flannel sheets make good rags for dusting. All this recycling would lead one to believe Camp Cactus is a tidy place, orderly and simple. A place full of useful objects, a place that gets dusted occasionally, right? Well, not exactly...here, let's check out the linen closet:


I ask you, just how many dust rags does one need? I know, at first glance it doesn't look that bad. (What you don't see is the depth of the closet...at least three feet!) Please note that there are no towels in the stuffed to the gills neatly organized linen closet. There are however, crib and twin size sheets, even though we haven't had either a crib or a twin bed in the house for years. All this hoarding thriftiness has led to many inventive storage solutions, which is how we came to store the towels in a bookcase in the bathroom...

Even this is not simple, much to Dave's dismay. The poor guy craves the simple life. He doesn't like fussy stuff, whether it's "art food" or over-stylized window treatments, it just doesn't sit well with him. Which brings me back to the towels in the bathroom bookcase...

I'm a professional photo stylist. It's hard to check my design sense at the door. You've probably read the post I wrote about reorganizing the books in the front hall, so you know I get a little [ahem!] anal about how things look. But, back to the towels...I decided they didn't look so great folded, and if you wanted one from the bottom of the stack, it was difficult to extricate it without messing up the rest of the pile. So I pulled a stylist trick out of my hat and started rolling them up. Dave did his best, but couldn't quite replicate the look, so I decided to write a little tutorial. Here goes:

Step one: Fold in half lengthwise, ends together.

Step two: Fold the top third down to the center.

Step three: Fold the bottom third up over the top third, and smooth it out.

Step 4: Roll it up neatly, left to right, or vice versa.

Step five: And there you have it -
just like in the catalogs!

Stay tuned for my next tutorial: How to fold a T-shirt, Navy style.