Pile of Dispair
Like something out of an Indian Jones movie, the “pile of despair” is a trap. The quicksand of the laundry room. It appears innocent, clean socks, what could be harmful with that? But if I get too close to the “pile of despair”, I’m sucked in by its force. Before I know it, I’m hunched over for the next fifteen minutes, caught in a blizzard of endless matches and mismatches. My knees ache and my head spins and I am unable to comprehend why all the socks don’t have mates.
In my perfect world I would raise my family on the shores of a small Caribbean Island. The closest sock would be 100 miles away in Puerto Rico. But no, I’m in Pittsburgh and in the winter the “pile of despair” grows at an alarming rate. My husband alone can go through three pairs of socks in a day – the work-out sock, the work sock, and the evening sock. I feel myself sinking. I gave my daughter the choice of folding ten towels or attacking the “pile of despair”. Secretly I hoped that she would choose the towels. She is too young and pure to be sucked into the pile’s misery.
But just as the pile is reaching my chin, I stroll through the mall. And there, between the haggered 75% off sweater rack and the fresh madras shorts lies the socks greatest nemesis, and thus, my hero. The flip-flop.
Pulling me up and out of the pile, this lowly conqueror appears at my house every spring, offering hope. The socks that just weeks before threatened to bury me, run for cover and stay hidden for months in everyone’s top drawer. The snow and gray skies that have painted the scene outside our windows drag some people down all winter, but for me it is the pile of socks that coats my laundry room floor. When the flip-flops return, not the buds on the trees or tulips in the yard, then I know I’ve made it through winter.
