"Ugh, where is it? I'm sure I put them both in here."
Sarah stood in front of the dryer and rummaged through the laundry basket full of warm clothes. She held a sock in her left hand; it was red with a black toe cap and heel, with black spots dotted all over. She growled and got down on her hands and knees to look into the dryer. Her hand pushed the drum causing it to spin around her; she was waist deep into the machine, shaking her ass back and forth when it finally sunk in that her other sock wasn't there.
"What is the deal?! Are you eating them?" she said and pulled herself from the opening. She smacked the front and huffed before standing up and grabbing the basket of clothes. Her eyes scanned the floor one final time before rolling her eyes and heading out into the living room.
"James," she called out. Sarah dropped the basket onto the living room table and sat down on the couch. She reached in and started plucking out clothes before folding them and setting them aside. "James!" she said, louder this time.
James was a thin, tall, nerdy looking 18 year old college kid. He was dressed in tan cargo shorts and a blue polo shirt with his college's logo on it. His square black frames constantly slid down his nose and caused him to have to adjust them every few minutes.
"Yeah, mom?" he said as he walked down the stairs into the living room.
"My socks are missing.
Again,"
she said.
"Oh?" he said fidgeting.
"I swear it's that damn dryer your father bought. Are you missing any socks?"
"I don't think so..."
She held up the single sock. "These were one of my favorite pairs! Your dad bought them for me when he was traveling for work. They're so soft," she said pushing the sock against her cheek. "Now what am I gonna do? Mix and match?"
She threw the sock into the basket and fished out a red shirt, angrily folding it.
"I'm going to have a repairman come by this week so we can get to the bottom of this," she said.
"Do you really need to do that, Mom? It's just a few socks."
"A few socks??" she said incredulously. "11! 11 socks!"
James blushed and avoided eye contact.
"That dryer is a menace. I'm going to have the repairman rescue my lost socks and if he can't fix it we'll throw it out and get a new one."
#
A week later a tall thin man was hunched over in the laundry room examining the interior of the dryer. A pile of lint lay next to him alongside an assortment of battered coins. His small flashlight panned around beneath the drum and he reached back and pulled forward another small mound of fluffy debris with a shiny quarter sticking out of it. He promptly added to the growing collection.
Sarah walked up behind him and watched him work.
"Any luck?" she asked.
"Oh yeah. I'd say you've got yourself at least 15 bucks in change here. Pretty good haul."
"I meant the socks..."
"Ehh, nope. No socks. Plenty of lint," he said with a smirk and patted the growing pile next to him. "You should clean out the trap more often to stop it from building up."
"We do. I do. My son and husband forget sometimes. Are you sure there are no socks in there?"
"No ma'am. No socks, undies, or anything else. I take apart a lot of machines and it's rarely the machine's fault. Usually it's the family dog or just misplacing them."
"I doubt I've misplaced 11 socks; and we don't even have a dog," she said with a scowl.
The man raised his hands defensively. "Just givin' you the facts, ma'am." He looked back at the open machine and then back to her. "Was there anything else you wanted me to look at or can I close everything up?"
She sighed. "If nothing is wrong with it then you can close it up."
#
The next day, Sarah was in the kitchen doing the dishes. She wore a short sleeved pink t-shirt, v-necked, that showed off a bit of cleavage. Her pants were bluejeans and she wore white socks with a pink heel and toe cap.
James briskly walked into the living room and quickly struggled to put his shoes on.
"You're sure in a hurry," she said watching him curiously.
"I slept in! Mr. Jones gives extra credit to students that show up to his class on time. I really need the points."
"What?! I thought you were doing well?" she said, her hands on her hips.
"Er, I'm trying to?"
"James, you know how important your schooling is to your future. I want you to be focused and doing well. Don't waste your father's money and your potential."
"I know, mom!" he said quickly tying the second shoe. "I'm working on it."
Sarah sighed and shook her head going back to washing dishes. "Oh, did you bring down your blankets and sheets to be washed?"
"Already out the door!" he said and slammed the door behind him.
She sighed again. "That boy, I swear."
She finished up washing the dishes and dried her hands off on the towel hanging from the oven handle. Her thoughts were still on the sock mystery and she couldn't shake the feeling she was a part of some kind of practical joke. She pushed the thoughts aside and made her way to the laundry room. She grabbed an empty basket and headed upstairs.
Her son James did most of his own laundry but she still had to do his blankets and sheets every month. As she put it "
If I waited for
you
to do them they'd
never
get done
".
She turned the handle and pulled open the door. A wall of stale teen-boy air hit her in the face and she grimaced. "Ugh, my god." Sarah waved her hand in front of her face and put down the basket, hastily walking over to the window and pulling it up. The fresh autumn air immediately improved the atmosphere of the room. She turned and examined it in greater detail.
The room was mostly well maintained but there were a few drifts of clothes here and there. James often wore the same clothes for several days in a row, especially jeans and sweaters. This led to roaming piles of clothes that were not clean but not dirty either; at least according to him. The laptop James' parents bought him for graduation was on the table; closed. And his bed was unmade; as usual.
Sarah began grabbing clothes from one of the piles and folding them before setting them back onto the floor (neatly). After a few minutes of work, the disordered piles had been tamed into 2 neat stacks in front of the dresser. She smiled to herself.
So much nicer in here
she thought.
She grabbed the blanket sitting atop his bed and dragged it off toward the basket on the floor. As she pulled, a tablet fell onto the carpet in front of her. "Oh shoot!" she said quickly reaching down to pick it up. She examined the screen for cracks and didn't find any,
thank god
. It was an old android tablet that barely worked but James' still used it on occasion for reading books. She wiped the glass off on her shirt and placed the tablet safely onto his desk before continuing to put the blanket into the basket. She bundled up the fitted sheet and threw it into the basket as well.
Downstairs in the laundry room, the washing machine quickly filled with water. She measured out the correct amount of soap and dumped it into the drum causing a rush of soapy bubbles at the bottom. She reached down into the basket at her feet and lifted up the sheet, as she did a sock fell out from the crumpled white fabric and landed back in the basket below. It caught her eye and she furrowed her brow. She dumped the sheet into the washer and bent down to pick up the sock.
It was one of her missing socks. The same sock she had been looking for last week. It felt stiff in her hands; it was stained, having white streaks running up and down it's length.
"What the hell?"
