Solving life’s mysteries 1 at a time. Number 1. Where do all the socks go?

Where do all the socks go?

Socks were always prone being mislaid, Archaeologists dig up Roman socks that were chucked out in bedding straw and sending socks off to the laundry was always fraught with danger, which might explain why some young men have a reluctance to wash their socks: they fear sock loss.  However in the 20^th century the invention of the centrifugal motion on washing machine and tumble dryers created a new hazard: the arcane widdershins and clockwise rotations on these devices cause small fractures in time/space continuum and open micro wormholes. The sock, due to its sympathetic shape was, more than any other clothing item, likely to be sucked into these mini-wormholes. This much is common knowledge, but I hear you asking where do all the socks finish up? Well the other end empties onto a planet Sugob in an alternate universe, here is where socks go on to fulfil their greater destiny. On this planet there is only one sentient species, the Skcos. All Skcos were of the same age, hatching out of their pseudo egg capsules at the same time at the beginning of the long Sugob spring. Hurrah I hear the children say, but it was really not ideal; Skcos had no accumulated wisdom, no transfer of culture and no mentors. Why? Because of the strange life cycle of the Skcos; you see Skcos are creatures without digits or limbs, imagine something that looks a flexible rubbery flying saucer crossed with a limbless octopus and, can form a number of shapes from cylinder to purse shape and you have a rough idea of a Skcos. Skcos are quite mobile and clever but have almost no material culture, the nearest thing a Skcos had to a home was a favourite rock, where it might leave a few favourite things, pretty pebbles or a leaf. Of course we all know people like this but for the Skcos this was a serious drawback, for at the beginning of the long Sugob winter, the drop in temperature triggered the relentless Skcos breeding cycle. Basically the well fed Skcos would lay around 4 egg capsules then sit wrapped around them patient as a daddy penguin, unable to feed, gradually growing weaker and weaker, the days growing colder and colder locked in a brutal race against time to successfully reproduce. All adult Skcos died immediately  before their young hatched (no harrays thank you). Now many of you may think that all childbirth is a form of evolutionary death, however you are merely waxing metaphysical unlike the very real Skcos problem. Skcoses only art-form was declaiming poetry that had a mono-thematic focus on reproduction and inevitable death with literal rather than figurative allusions to the change of the seasons. But the advent  of the socks changed the very basis of Skcos life. The first Skcos  to encounter them merely thought them a decorative additive to the otherwise dull terrain, and dragged them off to their favourite rock, as décor features. Stripey football socks and pretty girl’s colourful  knee-hi’s were hotly contested items. It is unknown which Skcos took the dramatic step of climbing into a sock to lay its capsules but it was revolutionary! Skcos found that, particularly with judicious multi-layering, that for the first time they were able to leave the sock nest to forage, safe in the knowledge that their eggs were maintained at an appropriate ambient temperature! That spring for the first time multi generations of Skcos survived. Whole new themes opened up in Skcos poetry, i.e. the problems of first time parenting and divine mysteries regarding the origin of socks. Skcos Society really began.  So when you mourn the loss of a favourite sock know that it has gone a better place!

Footnote:  Disclaimer : the long term effects of the increased numbers of  Skcos on Sugob is unknown and unfortunately sock habitation, may like so many other wonderful advances, have a long-term problematic effect on the survival of this species.