Sock F****!

Halloween is over, and that means I can finally get back to updating this site. What’s that you say? I haven’t updated this site for over a year? Well, let me assure you that you are wrong and I will be changing the dates on all my posts soon to corroborate my story. Think of it as a sort of day-light savings time, only for years. Don’t worry, in six months or so, we will go back to normal. By then, everyone will have forgotten about it.

Hmmm, my intro paragraph sounded really good in my head, but now seems to be filled to the brim with stupidity. I could just erase that crap, but I have almost filled a half a page so far. If I change my font size to 72, I could pert-near fill a page. Then I could stop and feel productive

Note: I am not sure why I used the term “pert-near”, but I do remember my grandmother Mildred using it quite often. She also used the term “Bushel and a Peck” to describe how much she liked things. She may have got that from a song, or it may be something she made up as she got older. I suppose we will never know since she is dead now. I sure wish I had asked her.

Ok, well, since I am not going to erase the steaming golden chunks preceding these words, I will distract everyone with an awesome thing I discovered.

Sock Flags!!!!!

What are Sock Flags? Well, I am glad I asked myself that. Before I go into what they are, I will tell you a story of how I discovered this powerful tool for wife/daughter annoyance. About a year ago, I was sitting on the couch with my wife. Actually, I was not just sitting on the couch, I was sunk into it. I had reached the kind of comfort level only achieved by throwing yourself into a huge comfortable couch after a long day of sitting in front of a computer monitor while listening to idiots blather on about how Baraka Obama really means it when he says he will change things. I would totally vote for him if he would just whip out his arm blades.

But I Digress!!!

My daughter was sunk into on our other, smaller couch. Some people call these smaller couches “Love Seats”, but what does that mean really? Are you supposed to “do it” on the “Love Seat”. I just call it the smaller couch since it is where my teenage daughter normally sits, and I don’t want to think of her and “doing it” in the same thought. She is only 13 and there will be plenty of time for her to think of those things when she is at least 40 and married. Why 40? Well, I will probably be dead by then. If I am not dead, I will smoke up some crack and slide naked down a giant razor. That should speed things up.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Sock Flags.

Picture this. There I was, sitting on the couch with my wife, with my daughter on the smaller couch. I was wearing socks, with my feet propped up on what is known as an “ottoman”. Apparently, the ancient Turkish people known as Ottomans were adept at crafting padded stools with which to rest your feet. I assure you this is where the term comes from. I am going to update Wikipedia right now.

Ok, so far, so good. I will let you think about that for a second. Me, wearing socks, on the couch…Sounds pretty awesome right? Well, I can assure you it was awesome, but I was just seconds away from adding about four million gallons of hot boiling liquid awesome to the awesome I had already amassed.

I noticed I had a slight itch on the bottom of my foot. Since I was wearing socks, and I did not want to bend my body in a way that would disrupt my couch sunken-ness, I used my foot to scratch it. Because of the socks I was wearing, I had to apply significant toe-pressure to the itch to be sure it was eradicated via scratching. As I accomplished the scratching of the itch, part of my sock was loosened from the end of my foot creating a foot-sock void. I contemplated the foot-sock void for a moment and realized the empty sock area I had just created may just be swish-able. Since I am always looking for something to swish around, I decided to pull my foot further out of my sock, creating an even bigger foot-sock void.

By now the end of my sock was a mighty two inches from the end of my foot. I stared in fascination at the foot-sock void and decided that it could easily be a sort of miniature flag; A SOCK FLAG, if you will. I had created a dirty, white banner of unbelievability right before my eyes. I could easily imagine a bunch of miniature Frenchmen erecting it to appease the Germans. I had struck gold!

At first, I tried a test-swish, and it was magnificent. With the success of the test swish, I decided to forgo the other mandated test-swishes and skipped straight to the initial familial offering (IFO). I started to wildly flail my sock flag for all to see. I looked around to see if the sock flag affected my wife and daughter the same way it had affected me. Well, it had not.

My wife and daughter just sat there aghast. Even before I had a good dozen swishes behind me, my wife had to begun to object. I tried to dodge the “Stop it, that’s gross,” and the “I can’t see the TV Dad,” but they were too much for me. I tried to keep going, but the final straw was “You are making me miss Ugly Betty!” At that moment, my glee was buried under the inevitable avalanche of spousal/daughteral disagree-ability.

Note: “daughteral” is applied the same way as “spousal” in the term “spousal abuse”. Here is an example: “If Madison does not get better grades in math, she may become a deserved victim of 'daughteral abuse.'"

At that moment, I was crushed. You know the feeling…You discover something so wonderful and fulfilling and plan to spend the better part of your sock wearing time practicing it, only to be told that “Ugly Betty” is way more important. I have seen it a million times.

I had stopped swishing, but my sock flag was still there, hanging lifeless like some sort mighty battle standard forced into a glass display case, never to swish again. That’s all folks, my life is over. It was at that moment as I was reaching for my suicide brand razor blades when I noticed my wife was still upset about the sock flag. It was no longer swishing, but the site was no less heinous to her. She demanded, as wives are known to do, for me to either fix my sock, thus destroying the sock flag, or remove my sock entirely, thus morphing the sock flag into a much less exciting normal sock. She had thrown down the gauntlet. It was her or the sock flag. I had a big decision to make.

Having faced life altering decisions in the past, I decided that it would be more fun ignore her ultimatum and bring the sock flag nearer to her face so she could witness the sock flag glory she had apparently missed. If she only knew the glory of the sock flag, she would surely rescind her earlier remarks and revel, as I had, in the lovely loveliness that is the sock flag.

Well, that did not happen, nor did my wife did think that the "sock flag/wife's face" proximity ratio of 7:1 feet (seven feet per sock flag) needed to be compromised. She promptly got up off the couch and ran away. I then turned my attention to my daughter, who at this time, was laughing like a hyena. I then attempted to breach the "sock flag/daughters face" proximity ratio, but before I could, she got up and ran as well.

With the threat eliminated, I began a vigorous swishing campaign. I swished clockwise and counterclockwise. I swished the figure eight. I swished every conceivable swishing maneuver. I swished until my two dogs decided that my sock flag was a toy and attempted to bite and tug at it (biting and tugging is apparently one of their favorite things, second only to sniffing each other’s asses). As they tugged, my sock flag grew mightier, larger, and more desired. The battle ensued. I tried with all that I am to hold onto the sock with my toes, but the dogs would not be denied and were eventually able to make off with the sock.

The dogs took their prize to their normal spot for prizes, our bed. This is precisely where my wife was hiding to get away from the sock flag. Irony can be a cruel mistress (her full given name and title is actually "Ironica Smith, Mistress of Cruelty), and apparently does not take kindly to the disgracing of a sock flag. The only way to appease Ironica is to fold the sock into a small triangle.

I reflected on my epic discoveries and ensuing battles. I had had a full afternoon already and was getting tired. Ugly Betty was calling me. In my fatigued state, I could no longer fight her. I sunk further into the couch and let myself go. My wife and daughter returned from whence they ran with a sock folded into a triangle and things went back to normal. This lasted for about 30 seconds.

31 seconds later, my remaining sock clad foot started to tingle, and before long, it had escalated into a full blown itch.

I think I started a whole sock themed ouroboros.

Life is truly a cycle.