November 26, 2012
-
The End of the Line
‘Tis the season for warmer socks.
It has come as an unpleasant surprise to me that I am advancing far enough in age that my feet now get cold. I am the person who could walk out to the mailbox barefoot in two inches of snow and hop back to the house without really doing any harm to myself. Years ago I was sitting at my computer one evening and this light kept swirling across the ceiling and, priding myself on my observational skills, I went to the window to find three fire trucks, an ambulance, four cops and a raging house fire one lot beyond mine. Curious, I trotted out to my front yard to take a closer look (how did I miss all of these sirens? Where are the people who live in this house?) and over time I perceived a steadily-increasing unpleasant sensation which appeared to have its source in the grass at my feet.
It was frost.
I was standing barefoot on the frosty ground in late October. I thought to grab a jacket for my arms, but forgot my shoes.
Last year I took Riley to the dog park and perceived an unpleasant sensation all over my body. Other people stood around stamping their feet and uttering a foreign word.
Cold.
I had not been cold since some time in my early forties. In fact, I went through several years where I all but ran outside naked and rolled in the snow. By accident and foolish habit I wore a winter coat one year while shopping with my younger sister and eventually had to peel it off and store it on a shopping cart while she pondered one of two pairs of slacks (neither one of which she bought, nor did I ever believe she would. It’s the decision that has to be made: actual purchases are for the self-indulgent.)
I was cold last winter. As you recall, it was about the mildest winter Michigan has had in recorded history. Temperatures fell as low as the twenties (barely qualifies as snowball-making weather, in the North) and I wore two pairs of socks, stretch pants under my jeans and a fall jacket under my winter coat.
I zipped my coat last year! I haven’t zipped my coat since the last time I got away from my mother.
And this year is apparently going to be worse. The temperatures dipped down to 32 degrees and I have to put on clogs and a jacket to escort the dogs outside!
All of this is leading up to a nasty observation about trends.
My socks are thinning. (They do that after about 5-7 years.) Nancy’s polar fleece socks have holes where her heel hits the cold ground. I would have assume polar fleece was indestructible, but apparently I was wrong.
So I went to the store to replenish our polar fleece socks.
There is not a pair of polar fleece socks in the 5 stores I’ve been to.
Not ONE.
The world’s most perfect sock, and they’re gone.
Well, actually, the world’s most perfect sock was a slouch sock, socks knitted out of large bore cotton yarn with giant tops designed to not fold over nor stand upright, but to slide down, giving the outward appearance of leg-warmers wadded up just above the ankle. Because they were good, of course, those went out of style…pretty much slightly before I laid in my emergency supply of polar fleece socks.
Now all I can find to keep my feet warm are fuzzy froth-knit socks in improbable colors that look ridiculous on someone my age.
My Grandmother wore clothing of same the vintage from the day I met her (she was about 60 then) to the day she died (95) and you could not walk into a store and buy anything she wore in any of that time.
So somewhere there has to be a vintage 1960s hippy headshop where I can find my beloved slouch socks and perhaps a peasant blouse or two made of that wrinkly you-couldn’t-iron-this-shit-flat-if-you-tried stuff that was popular when I was in high school. Jeans with giant upholstery patches across the ass and knees. Dr. Schoals (Scholes? Shoales?) wooden sandals.
When your feet are cold, trendy is over-rated.
‘
