The Art of Pairing Socks

When I was little, my mother taught me things a girl needed to know about housekeeping. She offered words of wisdom like, ‘If the floor is clean, the room will look clean.’ She had me practise ironing with hankies, tablecloths and pillowcases. One time, I was with her when she was hanging out the laundry and she said, ‘The sole of the sock should be facing this way.’ I worried at the time that I didn’t really understand what she meant and whether I would remember all these details when it was my turn to have a house.

I did not live up to my excellent training. My housekeeping is more along the lines of vacuuming around piles on the floor and hiding clutter in cupboards. I decided that it’s completely unnecessary to iron pillowcases, and I don’t even use hankies, or tablecloths, so I cheerfully gave up on ironing. But as it turns out, I’m super-efficient at hanging and bringing in laundry. 

I have a very particular method. Going right to left I start at the back with large things like trousers, then move forward to t-shirts and singlets, and finish with the smalls. The socks are last out of the basket, so it’s easy to hang them in pairs along the row, one sock per peg. While I don’t know if they’re hanging in the right direction, I do know that putting them away in pairs will be simple. 

One Christmas, when Mum was down from Queensland, she was helping me bring in the laundry. ‘I’m not pairing socks,’ she declared. ‘I had enough of socks when I was looking after you girls and your father.’ 

I agreed that three kids at school was a very different sock story to a middle-aged couple on their own, and I wondered why she hadn’t come up with an efficient method like mine, given her mastery of all things domestic. 

I explained my hanging pattern. She nodded and went along the row, folding the socks in neat pairs, which was pleasing, even though I prefer them rolled.