THE PRODIGAL SOCK.

What a morning I’ve had! It was spent down on my knees that’s for sure.

I was getting clean clothes out of the airing cupboard when something flew at me. No it wasn’t a demented bat trying to get home because it was daylight and neither was it a jet engine aircraft which Frank Whittle would have been proud to invent. It was a sock – One sock. I picked it up and scolded it for jumping out at me like that as if it was some errant driver who’d pulled out from a side road without looking to see who may be about to cross in front of him and thought:

“Now where the hell is the other one”?

I can hear all my blind friends shouting:

“Why didn’t you pin ‘em together you twit”?

I can hear scores of sighted people shouting:

“Oh well you’re not the only one who loses socks. It’s not because you’re blind. It happens to sighted people too”.

That’s what I’m trying to convey – That everything that happens to you happens to me but maybe the scale and frequency are magnified and you must admit it would take you longer to locate the missing sock in the dark.

The search began. Thank goodness for gravity. At least I knew that it couldn’t be on the upper shelves of the cupboard because I can hardly reach them. So I must have put it with its “brother” together near the bottomed so where oh where was it? I started by pulling out all that was stored on the lower shelves but will spare you the details simply because there are no dead bodies there or stunning manuscripts as yet unseen by publishers. I heard that irritating noise in my head, which used to indicate a wrong answer given by the contestants on a British TV show: “Family Fortunes” “o-o. Not there”. I crawled the length and breadth of the hall beginning outside the airing cupboard and ending by the front door: “o-o.” “Not there”. By now I was beginning to wish I’d never heard of “Family Fortunes”. I shook out the old towels that I keep for Esme’s drying game and wondered how she is as I’m still without her. “O-o.”. Bloody tune! Then, eureka! I find two socks snuggled up together waiting to go home to the sock drawer as it’s nearly time for tights now that it’s getting a bit Autumnal in the U.K.

“Damn”! I think and start singing that Cat Stevens song:

“Where Are You”?

That’ll teach me to listen to so much music! Then I have an idea. If I stuff my arm down behind the shelves I might find it lurking there in the dark just as I’m lurking here in the dark. (Yes I know I said I’m in a kind of nothingness rather than the dark but I didn’t tell you what time I got up this morning). I hope I won’t get my arm stuck as I shove it down the back of the shelving and, yes! Yes! Yes! I’ve won the lotto! Here, curled up in the equivalent of a sock version of a hedgehog, or is it a crescent? Can’t decide as I was so pleased to find it. Then I go in search of the safety pins as I remember the warnings, imagined not real, from my blind friends who scold me for not fastening the socks together.

“Now where did I put the safety pins”?

I just give up and turn the tops down, one over the other and off they go to the sock drawer!

Today’s my day for my home help’s visit. I’m glad I found it as otherwise the conversation would have ran thus:

“I’ve lost a sock, can you spare some time to help me find it? Can you see it”?

“Well where did you last have it”?

“If I knew that it wouldn’t be lost would it”?

“What colour is it”?

“Um er oh um er well now I think it’s ‘’’’’’How the Dickens would I know? I mean I did know but anyway here’s the other one – His mate so he’ll be the same colour as that one”.

Now I know the real meaning of the tale of the prodigal son. How there was so much rejoicing when the lost sheep was found. I mean you don’t open the wardrobe or airing cupboard or the sock drawer for that matter, and say:

“Oh my little jumpers, skirts and dresses! Thank god you’re all still here”!

Or:

“Oh you great big bath towel, you great big beautiful towel! How great it is to find you where I left you”.

People’d think you’re bonkers and besides where, other than their right places would they be? But you sure do rejoice after all that crawling – So much that the Dickens character Heap who was:

“’ever so ‘umble”

would be proud of, when the prodical sock comes home – Not that it ever went of course!

Then as I sit writing this another thought strikes me. This morning I crawled, stayed bent down, stood up again without so much as an “ouch”. Do you know what this means? No my feet aren’t better but a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t have stayed down on the floor so long because of the intense pain in my heels and tendons too so perhaps there’ll be some more rejoicing soon when the prodigal dog comes home. I can tell you this – I’ll be more pleased to see her again than any number of lost socks – So much so that I’ll feel like killing the fatted calf and giving her the bones.