I fully realize that by writing this post I am very likely jinxing myself. But I will write it. It needs to be written. Hope needs to be given to the world that it is indeed possible to do laundry and not lose socks.

I will admit that I used to be a person who lost socks. Regularly. At a certain point in my life, though, that changed. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what that point was or what happened to change it.

In fact, I hadn’t even realized it had changed until one day a few years ago somebody on some TV show was talking about how they always lose socks in the dryer and everybody else laughed along in agreement.

I started to laugh, too, but when I tried to bring to mind a recent such experience, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even remember the last time it had happened. I realized I was no longer a member of this club that, until that moment, I had thought everyone who did laundry belonged to.

Is it too much to admit that, mingled with a weird happiness in knowing I had fully functional pairs of socks, the realization also brought with it slight disappointment at now being shut out of said club. I mean, stories about not losing socks aren’t interesting or funny at all, are they? There are no water cooler exclamations of shared misery such as “You are so right! I never lose socks all the time, too!” or “I have a drawer full of matched pairs of socks, too! It’s horrible!” Who cares?? Now, stories about losing socks…that gets a sense of camaraderie going all the time! And so I was thence thrust out to no longer participate in such conviviality again.

I have come close to getting back in, though. I’ll fold the laundry, and at the end there’s a lone dark sock with no partner. In the early days after I realized I was no longer in the “sock loser” category, when this lone sock appeared I would think, “Ahhhhh…there we go. My grand run is over! I’ve rejoined the ranks. It had to happen one day. Well, it was good while it lasted.”

Then, invariably, I’d find his partner – tucked in the dryer or washer, dropped on the floor by the dryer, or hidden on the floor behind the hamper.

But now after all this time, there is no twinge of disappointment when I see the leftover, solitary sole atop my folded laundry. I see it and know – beyond a hyperbolic shadow of a doubt – that I will find its partner. It will not remain alone, destined to be tossed in the trash or turned into a rag. Sometimes it sends me on a merry chase – likely to keep me humble, I’m sure – but I always find it!

So, my friends, there is hope. One day you, too, may be able to empty that sad little drawer of misfit socks and match them again with their sole-mates to live happily on in the Drawer of Pairs.