sock trolls, astrophysics, and I don't even know what

A lot of things make sense that shouldn't. Many of these things have to do with physics or astronomy or some unholy marriage of the two. Or maybe they are the same thing. Only God knows. God and the astrophysicists. Maybe just the astrophysicists.

Gravity is an example that comes to mind. If you made up the idea of gravity and put it in a movie, movie critics all over the country would roll their eyes and snort condescendingly into their post-movie gin-and-tonics for hours, but then when they went to write about the movie, they'd be all like, "Yeah. Okay, yeah. This 'gravity' idea is actually pretty awesome. What would our world be like if 'gravity' was a real thing? Really makes you think, doesn't it? About morality. And social responsibility. About love. And small children. And puppies. And about things that are heavy versus things that are lighter. Five stars!"  Same with physics as sort of a general concept.

But luckily for us, this post isn't really about physics or gravity at all, because if it was, we'd all need some gin-and-tonics, as my knowledge about gravity is limited to my feeling that it is, in fact, probably a thing, and also I know how to spell it.

Luckily for us, this is post about my socks.

I cleaned out the armoire the other day. That's right.We don't keep our socks in a dresser like normal people. I personally keep mine in a giant, free-standing box like I'm sure the Europeans do. Raphael keeps his in a basket. Lila chews giant holes in hers and then buries them out in the yard. ("Hers" meaning "ours".) That's our system.

Anyway, here's what happened when I cleaned out the armoire:



Seventeen mate-less socks happened. Including, and I am not making this up, a mateless PURPLE sock with LEOPARD-PRINT FRINGE. See it up there, three from the right? You can't miss it - since it's PURPLE with LEOPARD-PRINT FRINGE. Is it even possible to lose the mate to an item even partially comprised of a combination of the color purple and leopard-print fringe?  Even if it's not made from the fringe of real leopards?

Isn't that the kind of question physics is supposed to be answering?

If I knew anything about celebrities - especially the old-school, heavily-dyed Zsa-Zsa-Gabor-types who love tiny dogs and divorces and, I assume, leopard-print anything such as thongs and headscarves - I'd insert a joke about one here. This being a lucky day for you, as we've ascertained, I know as little about celebrities as I do about angular momentum quantum numbers.

ZSA ZSA GABOR! HELIUM NUCLEOSYNTHESIS! PERIODIC PULSATING VARIABLE STARS! NEUTRAL LEPTONS! LINDSAY LOHAN!  Whatever. It's all basically the same thing.

So. Several conclusions can be immediately drawn from whatever it was I just said up there (if you subtract out the actresses). At least two conclusions. At least one of which is a real thing.

One conclusion you can draw is that we, like many people, have a sock troll problem. Sock trolls are similar to garden gnomes but live under the cobwebby parts of the house foundation instead of in the leafy, ladybug-strewn garden; subsist on socks and darkness instead of glitter and sunlight and whimsical long-stemmed pipes; and constantly steal bottles of wine which is why there never seems to be any wine in the house, and everyone goes around sockless and bitter, not to mention sober, all the time.

Sock trolls are the thing that makes sense that shouldn't. Because me having seventeen mateless socks doesn't make sense at all. It's like the space-time continuum and llamas. (Why the extra 'l'? WHY?). Whereas me having sock trolls makes me go: "OHHHH! SOCK TROLLS is why seventeen of my socks don't have mates. Right on. I'm going to bed."

So that's one conclusion.

The other conclusion is more damning.  It's that I have too many socks. I have more socks than most third-world communities have, collectively. (That sounds flippant, but you and I both know it's true. Sad AND true. Don't judge me! I know the word quark!*)

Anyway, the sad fact of me having too many socks has been made obvious to me because in the depths of the armoire, I came up with seventeen mateless socks and yet I'm still not exactly going around sockless. I wore two pairs of socks today which is what I do on a lot of days except when the Burning Eye of Mordor turns upon Tucson which is supposed to happen tomorrow, so probably I'll wear only one pair of socks tomorrow. Or possibly I'll just hold a wide-brimmed hat strategically across my person. It's going to be that hot. It's going to be like 80 degrees. That's no kind of weather for clothing, my friends. It's no kind of weather for socks which is a positive thing because by tomorrow, who knows how many of my socks will be left in the armoire? Probably none. Or, like, seven. It's so hard to know.

Sock trolls, my friends. My newest nemeses. Besides gravity, I mean, and unseasonal heat. And electron-phonon scattering.

I'm going to bed. 



* I mean I know "quark" is a word.