I know they also keep feet sanitary and provide a cushion between shoe leather and skin. Sometimes they're fun colored and express an individual's personality. They keep toesies warm. Some people buy those socks with "R" for right foot and "L" for left foot, and RELIGIOUSLY wear their socks according to the letter on the sole. If they can only find two "L"s, they break out in a cold sweat at the cosmic implications of such a dilemma.
I'm a barefoot-er sort of person.
(Confession: this morning I didn't wear socks inside my Muck boots, fed cows, tromped around SOCKLESS for two hours, then came home and have been puttering around barefoot. No one knew until this very moment. And the world kept turning.)
I completely resent having to wear socks in the winter.
Or any other time, really, but winter is the worst.
I don't mind my skin getting wet if I step in a little puddle of melted snow, but I nearly come unglued if my sock gets wet as a result of such an incidence. It's just...YUCKY.
I don't like the way socks creepily smunch down until they're all wadded up around my ankle. And THEN they start easing off the ankle to the end of my toes. When I was a moon boot wearing kid, I could hardly stand the creeping socks. I still can't. It's just....YUCKY.
Socks are evil things for being in groups of three or five in the laundry. That vexes me. Or for fading unevenly so that one is slightly lighter than the other, making a pair seem not q-u-i-t-e a pair. Then what?
(I know. It's a bitter diatribe. I've been holding this sock resentment in for years and only today felt brave enough to air my thoughts. Work with me, here.)
I like the freedom of bare feet.
I like feeling the world with 'em. (Yes, even the LEGOs. Talk about waking up your senses and feeling alive! In pain, but definitely alive.)
I like looking down and seeing my toenails painted.
I like that I can pick stuff up without having to bend over, simply by using my toes.
I like having feet tough enough tor trot across a gravel driveway in the summer.
I like not worrying if my white dog sheds on the black socks. (Who has time for that sort of anxiety, anyway?)
I like not slowing down to pull socks up or locate them.
Now, then...
are you a Sockie?
When was the last time you bared your sole?
(I'd like to point out that there's nothing morally or ethically superior about either camp; we are who we are, and that's that. I don't understand the "L" and "R" people, but I don't condemn them, either. I might laugh at them, and hide their "R" socks occasionally, but I respect them for their devotion to the letter.)
