The Lost Sock

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Sometimes you find something unexpected. Today was one of those days.

It seemed like the regular ordinary day. Wake up early, check the computer for a half an hour then back to sleep for weird dreams. While listening to the house moan slip on the sweats and check the big screen again as if there was something important to find. Shave, well trim with an electric razor then shower soaking the dust away. Getting dressed in somewhat freshly washed clothing then check something behind the door in the bathroom.

“What was this?”

There are two gray towels slightly damp now hanging behind the bathroom door. They always hang there. They never move.

But on the floor was a white bundle of something. It wasn’t there when I got into my birthday suit to take a shower and it wasn’t there when I went into the bedroom to get dressed… Or was it?

Being a house alone every little noise and dust bunny is noticed and become the familiar landscape so anything unusual attracts attention. The rustle in the bamboo with the small birds settling in for the night, the UPS truck slowing down in the street, the conversation of the neighbors walking up and down the street, the sirens in the distance and hoping they stay far away, misplaced spoon or plate, the coat hung on the wrong chair or the sound of the neighbor walking on her deck letting out her dogs are all sounds and visuals that get your attention for the variety of difference. The cobwebs in the corner or the standard position of the sofa in the middle of the room awaiting to be moved back into position is familiar and does not take a notion.

So I looked on the bathroom floor and there was a white bundle of material and I wondered, “What was this and where did it come from?” I stared at this little white bundled and tried to rationalize what it was and where it came from.

Perhaps it is a washrag I’d forgotten about? But why wasn’t it there earlier in the morning? Perhaps it was something I picked up from the Laundromat? But I didn’t take the towels to the Laundromat. Perhaps it was… and then I was lost.

Reaching down and picking up the item I saw it was a sock. A small white sock, actually grey with dust and dirt with a little blue band around the top was what held in my hand. It looked worn and used and did not match any sock I presently have.

And inside the sock was a red cat toy.

I did not examine the sock any further but threw it into the trashcan. This is too spooky for me to try and rationalize.

Maybe a small animal found it upstairs or under the house and brought it in the bathroom without me seeing it? I walked through the rooms to see if there were any other treasures left for me to find. Maybe the last shift of workmen left it behind the door and I just didn’t notice it? What would they do with one dirty little sock filled with a cat toy?

There was a time when I would find all sorts of strange objects around the house and not give it a second thought because I knew there was so much confusion going on that it was the normal behavior of the world.

This was different. No one else could have placed this sock behind the door and I certainly didn’t put it there so where did it come from?

The day as progressed and the familiar seemed the same but that sock in the trashcan still ponders my mind.

What should I do if I walk back into the bathroom and find another sock? What if the sock is not in the trashcan?

Little mysteries of living alone.