Where Are My Socks?

I have a serious and most disturbing problem:  missing socks.

I know missing sock syndrome (mss) is quite common.  You throw socks in with the rest of your wash and when you go to fold and put away the laundry you almost always end up with a lone sock missing its partner.  I've had socks go through the water discharge hose of my washer and end up in the discharge tub all wet and gross. (Inevitably this only happens to one sock so I put the other away and wash the gross sock again and hope that I remember to put it away with its partner after the next load).  I've had socks get stuck in the dryer and only find them after the next load goes through.  (And again I have to hope that I can find its mate and put it safely away.)  I've had socks that disappear, only to mysteriously reappear wrapped up in the folds of a sweater or the leg of a pair of jeans.

I have tried time and again to keep my sock drawer neat and paired.  But it is of no use.  I try to keep the unpaired socks aside, waiting for the time when they will once again be reunited with their mate.  But after several months (or maybe even a year) when I reorganize the drawer (as it inevitably has gotten out of control and I'm never exactly sure how that happens), I find solo socks and reluctantly toss them.  And then you know what happens...a week or two later the missing mate reappears and now I've thrown away a perfectly good pair of socks.

While this is frustrating (and expensive...well maybe not THAT expensive seeing how I've been known to buy socks at the dollar store), yesterday evening while planning what I was going to wear to work today I came across a sock that had been missing.  (It had been clinging helplessly to the sleeve of a sweater.)  I rejoiced that I could match it with its mate which had been waiting patiently in my sock drawer.  So happy was I, that I decided to wear them the next day (that would be today).  I laid them out with the rest of my clothes.

This morning I went to put them on and...Horror of all horrors...I could only find one!  Now it was early in the morning and it was dark (and the rest of the house was asleep), so I grabbed a flashlight to see where the other had gotten to.  I searched high and low, but could not find the missing sock.  I looked behind furniture and in other rooms, but no sock!

Obviously I have a serious sock problem!  Is mss to be my damnation? Are my socks not happy with each other and running away in the middle of the night?  Is the sock fairy unhappy with me and slipping into my home in the dark of night to steal random socks and drive me crazy?  Is there a vortex in my home into which lone socks enter, never to be seen again?

The answer to mss may never be known.  I may be forever cursed to wonder, where are my socks?