Socks

Carl Beck my dad, used to say he was built backwards, his nose ran and his feet smelled. Sometimes with some people, it was like that. As a nurse, there were some ripe odors when I had to remove shoes. In a small exam room, I had a guy remove his shoe and immediately, the room filled with the most obnoxious sour smell. I was glad that I didn’t need to remain in the room for very long and turned the young man over to the physician for examination.

We had an elderly recluse come into the emergency department. It was necessary to undress him because he hadn’t been caring for himself and was in poor condition. When we pulled off his high-top black brogans we could see his fet were wet and his black socks were wet and clung to his feet and ankles like a second skin. We had to use extreme care removing his socks so we wouldn’t tear his macerated skin. As we pulled off the socks, maggots began to fall out and crawl around on the bedsheet. One of the LPNs began to gag and had to leave the room, but she was a trooper and soon returned only to gag again and exit the cubicle.

Now that the unpleasant stories about socks are out of the way, I can share some other views on socks. Why are grandparents that buy socks for kids as gifts so behind on “what’s in?”When white socks were in style, grandparents were buying black socks or colored socks with several bright hued stripes around the top of each sock. When they caught on it was white socks with the colored bands, kids were wearing solid colored hosiery. Kids would rotate through sweat socks, crew socks, and athlletic socks. Then kids’ sock producers decided to put super-heros, animals, and various other designs on the socks. With a wide range of subjects, manufacturers began to specialize and target certain kids with their socks…and when adults were just catching on to designs that their kids like, the kids began to wear mismatched socks. When I was that young mismatched socks meant either you dressed in the dark and you couldn’t find the matching sock or the sock you were looking for had a huge hole or massive run in it, but grandparents, pay attention. If you have two kids to buy for, buy two pairs of different designed socks then you can give each kid one sock of each design, becoming a hip grandparent. Probably by the time I post this, kids will be wearing something else.