Sock Love

Tonight I was sitting at the dinning room table folding laundry. (We don't really have a dinning room table. We have folding tables that we set up wherever we want. Our dinning room is empty because I host scrapbooking at our house frequently and we set up tables throughout the whole house. Real furniture just gets in the way) I got to the bottom of the pile and started mating socks from the singles sock basket. (That reminds me of a conversation I had once. I don't remember who I was talking to, but I made some joke about telling this lame-0 guy who'd asked me out that I was too busy washing my hair or mating socks to go out with him. The person I was talking to was like, "What the heck is 'mating' socks?" I said, "You know, when you do your laundry and you take the basket with all the single socks that have piled up at the bottom and you find their match to make a pair?" She started laughing at me. She said that's not called "mating socks", but rather "matching" or "pairing" socks. She said saying "mating" socks made it sound like the socks were secretly getting together and having sexual relations to bring new baby socks into the world! I remember standing there feeling stupid. But then I thought to myself, A) Why can't you call it "mating" socks? That's what it is when you find two things that belong together and you put them together, right? and B) Even if it did have the connotation of creating "baby" socks, I like baby socks. They're cute. So why is that such a bad thing?)

So anyway, I was sitting there at our elegant dinning room table(s) mating socks. I was getting kind of annoyed at my husband, Lloyd. Why? Because Lloyd, not unlike many other men I've heard, keeps buying new socks. He's always telling me how he needs more socks. I tell him, no, he doesn't need more socks--we just bought him new socks. He always insists he does. So, when he goes to Sam's club to buy some of our weekly groceries (I would rather shop Costco, but they don't have one near us...YET), he always picks up a new 3-pack of socks. The man must have upwards of 200 socks (which, if you're a math wiz like me, you know that means at least 100 PAIRS of socks!) He just never bothers to sit down and "mate" his socks, the way I do. Ergo, his incessant "need" to buy more socks because he doesn't "have enough."

After mating about 50 pairs of socks (and not yet getting to the bottom of the singles basket), I was about ready to go tell him how mad I was that he keeps wasting so much of our hard-earned cash on new socks when already he has a gazillion socks "mating" and producing offspring on a daily basis! (Some people say the dryer "eats" their socks. If it does, that's okay because our singles basket must be the most happenin' socks single club around! They just keep multiplying!)

And then it hit me. I love my husband. I really do. He's the nicest, sweetest, most kindest, gentlest man I've ever been close to. He's so patient with me and all my shortcomings. The least I could do is afford him his sock obsession. And then, when thinking even more about how thankful for him I am, I remembered what it was like when I was single. I didn't get married until I was 30 years old (which is "old maid" status in Mormon culture). On my 30th birthday, I pretty much closed the door to the hope that I would meet my "Mr. Right", fall in love, and get married. I came to accept that it just wasn't going to happen for me, and I needed to learn to move on and start living life for ME, without always thinking, "But what if he comes along and..." I wasn't making any real plans for myself because I was in a perpetual state of waiting. I remember how, even though I had a lot of really neat friends and a great family, I was lonely and hated not having someone to share the happy times in my life with.

I'm SO thankful for Heavenly Father's blessing of finding my "mate". I didn't think it would happen, but we've been married almost 4 years now, and I continually marvel at how different my life is with Lloyd to share it with. Before being married, I would have loved to have a husband's laundry to do, or socks to "mate", "match", or "pair". Now, I'm so thankful I do.