Annotated essay about the back of my sock box*

Our washing machine broke down recently, and when we did the math on getting the replacement part shipped to us, we realized we’d all have to go about two weeks without doing laundry, unless we were OK with some flooding, which we were not. No big deal, really. Someone who will not be named** ran out of underwear three days early, but other than that, the budding minimalists and the fashion-indifferent alike all had plenty of clean clothing to get through the ordeal.

Speaking of minimalism, I did find something interesting in my decimated sock box:

Behold the five pairs of socks that DEFINITIVELY spark the least joy! I decided that three of these*** will be hitting the pavement on Monday, along with another big stack of books I removed from the guest room shelves and some other odds and ends. I’ve been listening to The Minimalists' podcast a lot lately, and they always say stuff like, “If an item is no longer bringing you pleasure, why not release it back into the world so someone else can get pleasure from it?” That phrasing kills me every time, but thinking of it like that does make a lot of sense. I mean, it doesn’t probably apply that much to used socks. But the other stuff will find homes with people who will be glad to have it, and in the meantime it will be nicer for me to have a little more breathing room in the sock box.

I was about to say that, ha ha, I’d be in trouble if there was a three-week laundry emergency, but then I remembered that it is actually possible to wash clothes without a washing machine.**** That epiphany would have been more helpful during the Underwear Situation.

* No kidding, this has to be a new low in terms of blogging about the trivia of my life. All uphill from here!
** But not me.
*** I do sometimes get in the mood to wear the absurd blue striped ones, and another pair may have been unfairly lumped into the group because it was in the back.
**** Shaking my head at this ridiculous example modern-convenience blindness.