MOREL’S CAPSULE · SMALL CODES

The surviving
sock

When everything is naked, why is it still there?

There are moments in life when one has to accept that a relationship has no future.

A sock with a hole is one of them.

Especially when you notice it after the rest of the clothes are already on the floor.

Shirt: off.
Trousers: off.
Underwear: off.
Dignity: we shall discuss it tomorrow morning.

Socks: still present.

This already confuses me.

Then one of them has a hole.

And suddenly I no longer know what the correct response is.

Do I find a needle and thread?

Do I look for a darning egg and turn the encounter into a domestic-economy workshop?

Or, with the discretion that ought to distinguish a gentleman, do I open my drawer and say: “These are for you.”

Naturally, this creates another problem.

I wear long socks. Proper ones. The kind that reach below the knee and were once simply called men’s socks, before somebody decided that eight centimetres of cotton around the ankle were sufficient equipment for adult life.

In England, finding them has become almost archaeological.

You can find five hundred varieties of trainer socks, ankle socks, invisible socks and, if you look hard enough, probably socks that communicate with Alexa.

But a normal long sock?

Harrods.

Naturally.

Because apparently, in the twenty-first century, covering a calf elegantly has become a luxury good.

I continue to buy them. I have my little collection: colours, patterns, stripes, and a few specimens that probably ought to come with a certificate of good conduct.

So I could offer him a pair. But they reach the knee.

At which point I fear the young man, already naked and probably still confused that I noticed the hole, may think he came in for sex and discover that he is now dressed for a shooting party in Gloucestershire.

Perhaps that is too much.

Perhaps the simplest solution remains the best.

Take off the socks.
Have a shower.
And if there is a hole, buy a new pair tomorrow.

Not everything deserves to be saved.

Not even relationships.

Let alone a sock.

Andrea Morel