I have shirts organized in two old dressers (that I've had since I was nine, so these are not truly "big girl" clothing storage spaces), pants hanging on one metal rod, and dresses hanging on another metal rod. My tiny closet holds some long-sleeved shirts and my coats and a couple of fancy-schmancy long dresses.
But ... I am organized. Yup, everything in the drawers is color-coded, and my shoes are color coded, and even my pants are color-coded. This is not because I have any special compulsion; it's because in many lighting conditions, I am partially color-blind. I mix up brown and purple often (which I read at some point in my life to be the most common of all color mix-ups, but that could be a total lie), navy and black, and sometimes even black and dark green.
So, when it came time to organize my socks last summer, I spent a lot of time and effort under bright lights and in the sunshine that flooded the room during the day making sure that black socks went with other black socks, and that navy socks went with other navy socks. Once accomplished, I put all of the black socks to the left of the drawer, all of the navy socks to the right of the drawer, and I separated both with a bunch of brown or other color socks. This system has cut down on the sock fraternization.
Getting dressed in the dim dawn light is often a matter of snatching a pair of pants from one color section, a shirt from a coordinating matching section, and a sweater from my color-coded stacks. I choose earrings (yes, the silver earrings are on one side, gold on the other, and both are separated by multicolored earrings), find some shoes, and then...Then ... socks. This should be the easiest part because, unlike my pants and my dresses and my shirts, I only have two major colors to choose from that might get messed up. Remember: black to the left; navy to the right.
I grab some black socks that I have not worn yet this season. The last time I wore them was sometime last spring before the purging. I'm already running a bit late in order to avoid traffic and school buses that stop every fifty yards. I pull on the socks with identical thickness, look down and notice that the damn things don't match.
Oh, the color is fine. It's magnificent! I'm wearing black pants (I hope), and these are lovely, fabulous, deeply black socks. However, one clearly has a vertical stripe pattern and one clearly has a diamond pattern.
Sonofabuttmunch.
I examine both legs and the socks on my legs. Hmmmmm. Unless I look really closely, I can't really tell the difference. Well, I mean, I am half-blind in the morning, and I'm not wearing my glasses. I quickly rummage through the drawer, but I know there isn't another sock mate to either pair. I was meticulous in matching socks last summer. Perhaps ... perhaps ... perhaps neither had a mate, and I put them together hoping no one would notice them under pants. Yes, that does sound like me.
Whatever. It's time to leave, I'm wearing socks, and, as far as I can tell, they may not match each other, but they match my pants and shoes. That fact is good enough for me. If anyone notices that I have on two different socks (doubtful), I'll play dumb, laugh it off, and blame it on bad morning lighting.
P.S. The socks are in the dryer as I type this. Should I put them back together as a pair, or should I toss them into a bag and relegate them to the sock gods? I know, I know. Real world problems.
