No doubt you've been out somewhere and witnessed a stray item of clothing in a strange, public place. It might be a baseball cap on an empty seat in a movie theatre or a lone shoe on the side of a busy interstate. If you thought about it, you'd realize that you see this more often than, well, than you had previously realized.
Today, leaving work, we saw a black sock laying on the sidewalk. Of course, everyone in the group had to offer some sort of commentary on this. "Look, it's a sock", "Eww gross", "Where the hell did that come from?", "How does someone lose a single sock?", "Where's the shoe?" "Is there someone walking around with one bare foot?", etc. etc.
Here's the thing: I'm pretty sure it was one of my socks.
While it's a pretty plain, basic, black sock, I'm familiar enough with my own clothing to recognize it when I see it. I'll just say that if it isn't my personal sock, which I highly doubt, it is the exact same brand and make of some of the socks I do own. And since it was laying on the ground right outside of a place where I spend a great deal of time, well, you figure the odds. What I think probably happened is yesterday I wore black pants to work and through the magic of static cling, the sock was stuck to my pants, I just didn't see and it fell off on my way into work. At least, I hope it was on the way into work. I really don't want to believe I walked around for 14 hours with a stupid sock stuck to me.
Anyway, I didn't say anything about it being my sock. For starters, I doubt anyone would believe me. Secondly, I hadn't thought about it enough to explain why I believed it was mine. Third, it rained earlier and the sock was all wet, limp and dirty looking. So I just walked along with the group and left it there.
The problem is, I wanted to pick it up and take it home. I could have shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it. After all, it's just a sock. Not exactly a high-ticket item, it's not like I'm still paying it off. And socks wear out or get lost for other reasons all the time. I'll buy more socks at some point and not give much thought to the old ones that wind up discarded via natural causes. Still, for lots of reasons (including raging OCD and the stress of knowing I have an odd number of socks that accompanies that), I really wanted to rescue it. After all, it's mine, damn it. I paid for it, I own it, I maintain it with regular laundry cycles, I am responsible for it (until yesterday, apparently). It's my sock and I am entitled to full and complete rights of ownership, which include, but are not limited to, picking it up if/when I drop it on the sidewalk.
My first thought was to lag behind the group and then reach down and snag it when they weren't looking but I figured there was too much risk of getting caught if somebody turned around to see why I wasn't keeping up. Not keeping up with the group when you're heading to your respective cars at the end of the day is a good way to get branded a weirdo, especially if it's because you're picking up soggy, stray socks off the sidewalk. Then I thought I could drive around the block, pull over real quick, get out, grab it and jump back in the car and take off. This was also too risky because the street is pretty busy and doesn't have parking spaces or a breakdown lane to pull over into. Retrieval of one's sock is probably not the reason you want to give the police or your insurance company if you cause a major traffic accident.
So anyway, unless somebody else picked it up, my sock is still sitting there on the sidewalk. And I still want it. So if you go retrieve it and return it to me, I will give you $5. No joke!! That's a pretty good cash reward for a sock that isn't even yours. Of course, I'm no sucker and I'm not going to give five bucks to every jamoke who finds a sock laying around (gross!), so you will need to verify the true identity of the sock by describing it and where you found it. We will then need to arrange to meet in a dimly lit parking garage or an abandoned warehouse down by the docks or some other place suitable for the exchange of the sock for the loot (come alone, do not contact the authorities). Hurry, this is a limited time offer. Because if it's there when I get to work in the morning, I'm just going to pick the damn thing up.
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