THE NEW WAY TO "DO" SOCKS

This is the new rule for the new generation.

How to match socks: Not by color. Not by pattern. Not by anything you have ever learned. The new way to do socks is by thickness. Find two socks that have the same thickness and you are in luck.

This makes that laundry basket full of odd socks not so intimidating.

Who knew?

THE SOCK ARSENAL

This is one of our grandboys. He has a dart gun. His brother's had dart guns, too. They were having a war here Saturday night. They played outside with the other grandkids--eleven of them--until after dark. He was very careful to round up his darts and have them handy. He is a Mini James Bond. Mini James has all the latest equipment. This is the Sock Arsenal. It's very high tech.
The Sock Arsenal is so much more advanced that all that hoopla that the real James Bond has to carry. Below: Complicated. Cumbersome. Dangerous. Costly. Above: Simple. Inexpensive. And if the darts don't go off unexpectedly, safe.

A PERSONAL HISTORY STORY~~FLOUR WATER~~

I stood in front of the milk display at the grocery store. We were almost out of milk and would be for sure, after dinner. Would my milk delivery service have milk there by the time we got up in the morning? Have faith, I told myself, they’ve promised. Again and again they’ve promised. I decided not to buy milk.

The next morning, as I stood on the front porch in my bare feet, looking into the empty milk box I thought, you should have put your faith in the grocery store.

Cereal was out for breakfast; we’d have to have eggs and toast. Kraut, who was about twelve years old, decided not to have eggs. He inherited his Grandma Snyder’s stubborn gene, going back through generations all the way to the stubborn Danes—whom, I might add are also great qualities--just in case anyone from Denmark might read this, which I doubt, but you never know.

“I’m not eating eggs. I’ll have cereal,” he said in a tone of voice I had heard before. It was an exasperated, The Brown Dot-threw-his-socks-at-me-from-the-top-bunk-again-last-night-and-I’m-mad-about-it-and-nothing-you-say-will-make-me-change-my-mind-and-eat-eggs, sort of voice.

“There’s no milk,” I said.

“I’ll use powdered milk.”

“It’s not cold,” I said.

I had been “mixing” milk for some time in an effort to save money and also to use up the fifty-pound bag of non-instant powdered milk I had in the basement. As soon as it was used up I would buy a new fifty-pound bag so we would always be prepared in case of an emergency. I made a quart or two of powdered milk at night and then mixed it with “real” milk the next morning—that is if the milkman delivered. We weren’t supposed to be able to tell the difference between “real” milk and “mixed” milk. Or so the “food-storage” experts said. They were wrong but it was hard for me to admit as I wanted to be prepared.

“Just make me some,” he said, “because I’m not eating eggs!”

I mixed him a glass of powdered milk. I took a good look at it before handing it to him. It was separating, just like each batch of this milk I had made since I had opened the new bag of powdered milk. Even when it was mixed with store bought milk there was always a layer of sludge in the bottom. I had to shake the pitcher before pouring the milk. There was also residue left in the each glass. I’ll never buy this brand of powdered milk again, I thought.

Kraut poured the milk on his cereal and ate it, even the sludge.

After the kids left for school I reluctantly called the Milk delivery service and asked them again if they couldn’t get the milk to us before the kids left for school. They couldn’t. They had too many customers, they said. I thought that their milkmen liked to sleep in so I gave the milkmen the opportunity to do so by canceling my service. I then went to the store and bought milk and came home and mixed up a fresh batch of “mixed” milk so it would be cold by dinnertime.

I looked in the bottom of the pitcher. Sludge. Again! This wasn’t right. I was tired of having sludgy milk.

I opened the Rubbermaid container that I kept the powdered milk in and smelled it. It didn’t smell like anything. I rubbed a bit between my fingers. It’s didn’t squeak like the non-instant powdered milk did; it was silky smooth. Then I tasted it. It tasted like flour. I looked in the pantry and there, behind the oats, was an identical Rubbermaid container. This one had squeaky white stuff in it that tasted like powdered milk. I had been mixing our milk with flour. For weeks I’d been feeding the family milky-flour-water.

As soon as Kraut got home from school I ruffled his hair and apologized. I was grateful that besides inheriting Grandma Snyder’s stubbornness he also inherited her spirit of forgiveness. He hung his head and grinned and then hugged me back when I hugged him. Kraut could give awesome hugs and I felt some of my “I’ve-been-feeding-my-family-bad-food guilt” dissipate.

I never finished using that bag of powdered milk in the basement. I didn’t have the heart to mix milk anymore. Several years later we threw it out. If a catastrophe ever occurs we will drink flour water, just like Kraut.

SIX WORDS FOR GOTCHA.

Noisless Kraut, causes sock snowfall, indoors.

THE HORRIFYING PUTT PUTT DRILL AND THE PRE-TEENAGER

I was in the family room, watching TV—a horror film. Sigourney Weaver was being tracked by the Alien. She--the Alien--was a yellow toothed, stringy-spit, mucus-dripper who planted it’s young inside any handy human being and then, when the young matured, it exited from the human's stomach. The human died.

I was folding a whole laundry basket of mate-less socks. Folding socks didn’t take any mental capacity and I didn’t have any extra to spare.

Enter Kraut, about twelve years old. Kraut didn’t walk; he glided. He was also invisible. He could go anywhere in the house and Phil and I were always startled to see him there.

“Where did you come from?” we would ask.

He always looked baffled and shrugged his shoulders. He just walked in, like any normal, noiseless, invisible kid.

So Kraut--the noiseless one, was behind me. Naturally, I didn’t know he was there. Kraut notices the Putt Putt Drill, just sitting there, as if it were fate.

The Putt Putt Drill was a toy, built of orange plastic in the shape of a drill and it made an irritating burring noise. It’s the kind of toy grandparents buy for the grandkids. With continual use of toys like the Putt Putt Drill the parents nerves slowly disintegrate until the toy disappears—mysteriously. This usually happens exactly one day after the parent’s permanent facial twitch appears.

Kraut picks up the irresistible Putt Putt Drill.

I pick up a white sock with a red band and match it, slowly, with a white sock with a blue band, two sizes smaller.

The Alien opens its sharp-toothed mouth and drips slime.

Sigourney sweats--I could say she perspired but, let's face it, she was sweating. She had a sweaty look the whole movie.

Kraut glides behind me.

I slowly reach into the laundry basked for a double handful of socks.

The Alien knows Sigourney is there and moves in for the kill.

Sigourney sweats more vigorously.

Kraut puts the Putt Putt Drill next to my ear, not the drill end, just the noise part.

I hold my breath.

The Alien is poised. The time is now. Sigourney is going to die.

Kraut pushes the trigger.

Socks fly in the air like startled pigeons.

Kraut snorts in a very satisfied, "I gotcha" sort of way and disappears, fast as lightening, upstairs—out of reach—where he displays his youthful mirth.

Sigourney defeats the Alien.

Socks settle on me like snow.

And that is why parents loose their minds. Their kids drive then to insanity. In. One. Creative. Way. After. Another.