All of them. All of them help themselves to their mom’s closets like it’s Nordstrom. Including my own.
A while back when I was … well, smaller, she would swipe the occasional shirt or leggings from my dresser or vest from my closet.
Eventually though she outgrew me by more than four inches. She is a beanpole now. Our theory is she must have been switched at birth because her height towers over all other females in the family.
She grew, but her feet did not.
My attire does not disappear as often now, with one exception: socks. Initially I thought they were being eaten by the dryer, as this has been an issue in the past.
Several years ago our daughter decided that there was no reason to match her socks when putting laundry away (on the rare occasion she actually puts her laundry away that is). The dryer was eating several per load, so why bother? She began wearing whatever socks were clean whether they match or not.
I finally stopped arguing about it. Pick your battles, right?
Recently though, I have noticed I need to buy new socks more often than ever before.
“Is the dryer acting up again? Why is this drawer empty? I just washed clothes!”
Then it dawned on me: “She’s at it again!”
Sure enough, our daughter’s socks were multiplying, her room providing the perfect environment for them to reproduce. And they were everywhere (maybe you recall reading about her not-so-clean bedroom?).
Socks on the floor, socks in laundry baskets, socks on the ceiling fan (a game she plays with her kitten, but that’s for another time), and a few socks in her drawer.
But none of them — not one pair — was matched.
I’ll be damned if I am going to hunt down all of my socks and attempt to find their significant others in this dumpster fire.
So, I keep buying new socks (Thank you, Aldi Aisle of Shame, for providing reasonably priced socks) ... and they keep disappearing.
I’ve even tried hiding them. But like eggs on Easter morning, she hunts them down. It has become somewhat of a game now, and the only way I am going to win is to move to a tropical island where socks are not a necessity.
And honestly, that doesn’t sound too bad.
Motherhood, Part II, is a recurring column in the News-Sun.
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