This post may convince you that the Blogosphere has become too accessible, but there is, I think, a point here, although to get to it you have to read about big socks.
I have big feet: Size 12 American. For all my life, I’ve bought socks that say they are sized for shoe sizes 6 – 12, but are always too small — too small when you wear them the first time, and smaller and smaller each time they are washed. This was one of life’s small, insignificant irritations, I always thought, cramming my feet every morning into socks that were too small. It never bothered me much during the day, it didn’t (as far as I could tell) deform my feet, it didn’t really impact the quality of my life, but the socks were just too small.
Last week, I went shopping for jeans. After finding a couple of pair, I walked over to the sock area and grabbed a few pair of the usual ones marked “for shoe sizes 6 – 12.” Then as I was leaving, I saw a rack of big socks. Big socks, for shoe sizes 12 – 16. A whole selection of relatively inexpensive big socks. Packs of 6 pair of big socks. Smaller packs of 3 pair of very dressy big socks. Big socks in a variety of colors.
Was this a new thing, this rack of big socks? Have sock makers wised up to the fact that the average foot is getting bigger? Or did I just never look before? There are “big and tall” stores … why hadn’t it ever occcured to me to look there for big socks? I’ve worn the big socks for a week, and what a pleasure. But this is something I think we all do; we are conditioned to put up with small annoyances, with small inconveniences, as if we are deserving of them somehow. Big feet squeezed into small socks. We put up with them because the inconveniences are small enough that we’re never motivated enough to take action to mitigate them. The annoyances are small enough that they never rise to our consciousness when we’re in a position to do anything about them. They get fixed, if at all, by accident.
I love my new big socks. My feet are liberated from the bounds of size 9 cotton. You other small annoyances, watch out. I’ve learned a lesson.
Categories: Comments on Life