​Penny A Pair

We had been home for about an hour from our fall camping trip. When I heard the buzzer on the dryer sound off, I gathered the sheets from the bed in our Scamp. I put them in the washing machine, then retrieved the clothes from the dryer.
I dumped a hamper full of clean, warm clothes from the dryer onto the bed. First, I pull out any items that need to be on hangers. Next, I like to fold the T-shirts, so they don't wrinkle. Socks and under ware are next, and towels are last. When I had folded everything, I picked up a lone sock. "Darnit!"
It was one of my favorite pairs of socks: they are short, beige in color, with Peanut's characters on the ankles. Charlie Brown is holding the phone for Snoopy. One of the Peanut's socks had a small hole, but I refused to throw away a pair of clean socks. If I'm going to toss a pair, I do it after I've worn them. If a holey sock gets washed – it will be worn again.
One sock always gets a hole before the other. With most of my socks, I throw away the failed garment while the good sock gets washed, then put it back in the drawer, waiting for another matching sock to go bad. Then the survivor gets a new mate. That's not so easy to do with a theme or printed socks.
I shook the towels well, and I would have felt the sock if it was clinging inside a T-shirt. I'm reasonably sure I know the culprit: that sock-eating Maytag dryer. I returned to the basement and checked the drum - no Snoopy sock. "Savage beast," I called the dryer as I shut the door, then went back upstairs to my bedroom.
I pushed my hand inside the Snoopy sock. Looking it over, I smiled, "At least the dryer took the sock with the hole in it." Expecting the worst but hoping for the best, I would place the lone sock in the drawer – just in case.
Still holding the Snoopy sock, I took a single grey sock from the drawer. "I haven't had any of these for years." Then, as I tossed the single sock into the bathroom trash can, I began to ponder philosophical things and proper etiquette.
"What is the proper amount of time to keep a surviving sock when its solemate has been consumed by the dryer before admitting the lost soledure isn't coming back?" Keeping that grey sock for years was undoubtedly beyond a reasonable period.
While holding my Peanuts-themed sock, I remembered my younger days when Mom and Dad always had a basket filled with single socks.
It was an oval-shaped wicker basket, larger than most oval wicker baskets. As a kid, I thought thousands of socks were in that basket. I'm sure it was only two or three (maybe four) hundred as an adult. Dad had a standing agreement: "I'll pay a penny for every pair you match," he offered. Many times, I thought I could make a fortune in that basket.
I presented ten pairs of socks to Dad. The socks had to be fastened at the arch with a safety pin to collect your pay. "We wouldn't have single socks if you kids would learn to pin your socks together before putting them in the laundry," he lectured.
Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out his little green vinyl coin pouch. It was oval-shaped, like the basket, and when you squeezed the ends, the middle would open like a clam shell. He poked through his coins and handed me a dime. But then Mom got involved. You see, Dad was somewhat colorblind.
Mom looked over the socks I had brought. "Son, this is a black and a blue sock you've paired together." Dad would never have caught that. She continued, "These are two different shades of brown; these greys don't match, and the white socks; one has red stripes around the top, the other has orange." I returned to the paymaster wondering why Mom couldn't just mind her own business.
Saturday mornings, I was often determined to match several pairs. So I brought the sock basket to the living room, where my lazy siblings watched Saturday morning cartoons. "Anybody want to help match some socks and make some money," I asked. Glued to the TV, they had no interest in matching socks. Shaggy and Scoobie Doo soon gained my attention, and I also lost interest in the socks. But it was still worth bringing the basket to the living room.
I laid inside the basket on top of the socks. Then, resting my head on one rounded end, with my feet hanging over the other, I joined my brothers and sisters watching TV. Soon the wicker edge felt uncomfortable on my head. I went to my bedroom to get the pillow and blanket from my bed.
When I returned to the living room, someone had taken my basket. "You didn't call 'place backs,'" they declared. I would have to wait until the wicker edge was hurting their head, then seize the opportunity to reclaim my basket when they went for their pillow.
When that person returned with their pillow, they demanded I surrender the basket. "You didn't call place backs," I said.
"I did so," they argued.
"Did not," I insisted.
Another sibling would vouch for them, "Yes, they did. I heard them."
"I don't care," I said. "I brought the basket to the living room and had it first." Now it was a matter of size.
Determined to keep my nesting place, I gripped the sides of the basket, locking my knees over the end. The larger sibling would flip the basket, with me still in it. Socks spilled everywhere. An argument ensued, getting louder and louder.
Eventually, Dad would come around the corner in his bathrobe, "You kids need to pip down, or turn that TV off!" Saturday was his only day to sleep in, and he wasn't happy, "Why are these socks all over the place?"
"Instead of just sitting there, you guys could be matching socks while watching TV." (Note that the 'penny a pair was not offered' as we had disturbed his slumber.) The lecture would always follow, "We wouldn't have all these loose socks if you kids would learn to pin your socks together before you put them in the laundry." Those were simple days.
I stood by my dresser, holding and studying my sock. "Can a dryer eat two socks at once," I asked Snoopy and Charlie Brown? They just looked at me. "I know people lose a sock in the dryer all the time, but I've never heard of anyone losing a pair at the same time. So I wonder, if you pin a pair of socks together, would it be impossible for the dryer to eat them?"
While I pondered these questions, my dog sat at my feet. "Dad, do you really think those cartoon characters will answer you?"
"Sometimes they do," I answered. I heard the washer clunk as it finished its spin cycle. "Come on, Nova Mae. Let's go put the sheets in the dryer."
When the dryer buzzer sounded, Nova and I went to retrieve the sheets and dumped them onto the bed. I fold the pillowcases first, then the flat sheet to free up space on the bed before tackling the fitted sheet.
As I spread the fitted sheet, I swore I heard a faint voice, "Hello. It's for you."
"Did you say something," I asked my dog?
"I didn't say anything, but I heard it, too," Nova Mae answered.
I felt inside the corners of the fitted sheet and found something, probably the Bounce dryer sheet. I pulled it out. "Would you look at that," I said to Nova Mae. It was the lost beige sock, with Charlie Brown handing the phone to Snoopy.
I immediately went to the sock drawer, folding the two matching socks together. "I should get a penny for this," I said to my dog.
"I think you should get the penny," Charlie Brown said. “Me too,” said Snoopy.