Anyone who has ever had any dealings with the military knows that everything is communicated in acronyms. Information is distributed on a NTK basis (need to know), your status is G2G (good to go), if you expound in response to a specific question you've provided TMI (too much information - i sure wish I could have used that when I was practicing law), all personnel are governed by SOP's (standard operating procedures), emails are addressed to ALCON (all concerned) and when your tour of duty is over you return CONUS (continental U.S.).
Well, there is one acronym you won't find in any SOP but it is THE acronym that actually unites all of humanity. Every (and I do mean EVERY) human being who has ever walked this earth shares in common this one thing - from my friend in East Timor who used to wash his clothes on rocks in a lake in Guatemala to Bill Gates in his brain-house that knows how many parts per million of oxygen is inhaled in each breath- we have all experienced the mystery of the SMS. The Single Missing Sock.
If I ever put a message in a bottle afloat on the sea it will ask, "Have you seen my other sock? I know it was here when I put it in the washer. If you have a single sock of your own, send it to this address and I will make a match." If ever I am an anthropologist I am going to devote my career to tracking down the first civilization to lose a sock in the wash. I'll bet money they found a mateless sock in King Tut's Tomb.
I don't know how it happens - I match my socks before I take them in my laundry bag to the drop-off point. A small Afghan man inventories my laundry and counts every pair of socks as an "item". My laundry gets washed in the same bag it was delivered in. It then goes straight to the dryer before getting stacked on a shelf for me to pick up 3 days later. The bag never gets unzipped, the laundry never gets taken out and yet, in David Copperfieldien fashion, without fail one of my socks disappears.
One day we will be invaded by aliens who smother us in a barrage of our own single missing socks.
Happy Mother's Day (thanks for losing my socks when I was a kid, mom. You helped to prepare me for the real world).
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2 comments:
Cira,
Thanks for making my night. Day after day I click on the link I have made for www.seecirablog.blogspot.com and I have been anxiously awaiting the next post (as I am sure is the case with many other folks around here - one particular mom included). It's finally here, I exclaim to myself! Another blog from Cira. And this one tops 'em all! I am forwarding it to my mom so she can get an extra chuckle on Mother's Day, too. Thanks!
p.s. Are you hinting that your next care package should be single socks? Jill
There really is a sock heaven.....one day, when you meet up in the high sky you will see what fluffy clouds are made of...!
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