The Miserable Chaos of returning from holiday, 2 funerals and a week long visit from a German Exchange student has been exhausting and so the return to the mundane is a welcome destination.

Last week I became reacquainted with the laundry, the Vapid Entity of the sock bag and the balling of socks. No matter how many times we throw our socks into the laundry basket, no matter how close together we throw them into the sock basket, they always separate themselves within the seething mass of dirty squirming smalls. This much we all know, but when this morning I’m looking for some socks, a bag of which I’d balled diligently and in a moment of weakness when  trying to avoid painting the spare room, and putting the skirting boards on in the spare room in time for the German Exchange student, I took to balling the slippery sods.

Would you be surprised to know that N doesn’t ball his socks, in fact he didn’t know what it was when questioned this morning. His drawer next to his bed is a swirling mass of black socks, the event horizon of which sucks singletons in, never to be seen again, to vanish into the vacant void of socks in the fifth dimension.

Is it pure coincidence, I must ask you all, that my bag of balled socks has seemingly vanished along with it the socks and all that is left is a plastic bag of odd socks, hanging forlornly over a bent coat hook in the laundry room, presumably the weight of unhappiness within the odd sock bag has weighed heavy on the hook and bent it like Iru Gellher, the famous spoon bender and friend of questionable man Michael Jackson. The Exchange student’s suitcase seemed heavier as I carried it down to the car.

She is, I put it to you, A Sock Thief of the most diabolical magnitude.

So there we go, the problem I face is to drive into Worcester, to TK Maxx or smoother hateful discount store and fight my way through the maze of mirrors, chrome coat hangers and fluorescent tubing to buy 3 packs of 5 pairs of shir socks which will last me until Christmas, when I shall be given novelty socks, which will remain as emergency pairs, blissfully happy in their monogamy.