Why didn't someone tell me ... ???

Apparently, there's a new fad I've been totally oblivious to. I am not real comfortable about this new thing.

I have a thing for socks. Warm socks. Wool socks are the best (preferably handknit in handsome colors.) And nice, clean and soft white cotton socks. Socks that fit well -- not too tight. In my ideal world, everyone would be able to open the sock drawer and find something new and comfy every day. Especially me. I would have MANY somethings new and comfy to choose from every day. (I'm a sock hog.)

In my real world, socks are a precious commodity. I can usually find one decent sock, but not a mate for it. I often wear mismatched socks. That drives my husband crazy. He once asked me, "How can you DO that?" (wear mismatched socks, that is). My retort: "Well, at least I'm not like YOU ... I don't wear socks with HOLES in them!"

I still cannot figure how anybody can stand to wear a sock with a hole in it. Ghack! I guess my feet are just too touchy. Yeah ... we'll blame it on the feet.

I cannot explain the distress I feel when one of the socks I've spent way too many hours knitting from wool gets a hole. It's a disaster that ruins my whole day. I've even sought out and purchased one of those antique darning eggs, hoping to resolve the dilemma of a sock gone bad. So far, it has not worked out well.

I can't even stand to know somebody ELSE has holey socks on. Or those cotton socks that get "hard" when they are old and have been washed a million times. I've sometimes been known to give my precious new socks to visiting children just so I don't have to look at their feet wrapped in those stiff things -- it just hurts me. I once sat next to a man in a meeting, glanced down and noticed the sock he had on had a hole the size of Montana. (No, it was not my DH.) I was totally distracted by it for the duration of the meeting. I could NOT take my eyes off it. It was at the heel, and was so large that the bare skin at his achilles tendon was showing beneath the top of his shoe. How is anybody supposed to pay attention to a speaker at the front of the room with THAT thing sitting in the next chair over?!?

So ... imagine the astonishment I felt when I opened my email yesterday and discovered a pattern being offered on one of my favorite sites:














I find this very unnerving. What is this world coming to? Now we're supposed to wear socks with holes in them ... ON PURPOSE?!? Ohhhhhhhh ... I don't feel so well.

And to think ... I could have been on the cutting edge of this new trend, had I only known. Do you know how many socks I've thrown out because I discovered a hole?