Are you off-screen? Ready to ponder another one of Tyrean Martinson’s prompts from her book? And my, doesn’t she throw us a fun curve ball today?!
In other words: Holy socks! (Or was it holy smoke?!)
My first thought – I have to admit this much – led me up a garden path. Because of a letter that isn’t included in the prompt. I was thinking of holey socks. The kind that makes your feet feel the hole when you are stepping on them. It also reminded me of seemingly endless, tedious hours as a child when my mother taught me how to mend a hole in a sock and controlled that I didn’t take any short cuts. Stitch around the hole in a square while catching as many stitches with your needle as possible, then start spanning the warp threads as densely as possible, finally the weft threads until the hole is no more. There were special mending yarns in my mother’s sewing box, all in the colors of the socks we wore. And there were a pink mending “mushroom” and a mending egg made from natural wood. Needless to say, I hated the task, and I disliked the mending tools as much as I feared the holes. But that is the wrong kind of holy socks, anyhow. Because they are holey with an “e”. Nor is it about the holey socks some soccer players apparently wear because cutting holes into them makes new socks less tight and less painful to wear.
Next, I wondered how anybody would think that socks could be a holy item. Actually, if you google the combination of “holy” and “socks”, you will come up with an incredible number of websites offering socks with Christian motives. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. It’s a mixture of blasphemy and fetishism to me. But that’s just my personal opinion. Yet, it’s simply incredible what people come up with as long as it makes them money.
Indeed, though, socks are connected to an entire realm of beliefs – or rather superstitions. On the website sockgaim.com I found a number of fun facts that you might like to read about. Such as: a hole in a sock means that you are about to receive a letter. Are you having a streak of bad luck? Wearing a brand-new pair of plain white socks is going to break it. There are numerous ways that socks are suggested to bring you good luck – from their color to where and when to wear them. Actually, the only one I’m almost willing to believe is that wearing a sock around your neck will help cure a sore throat. But the last time I checked the size of my socks, I found I’d have to have a size 40 or so to be able to wrap one around!
As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that any socks are holy, at all. Not even the ones you hang on the mantlepiece to be filled by Santa. Even IF they get stuffed. So, call me a sock-heretic!
What are YOUR thoughts on “holy socks?
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(Photo: Meghna R @https://unsplash.com/)
As a young child I hated wearying repaired socks . . . they hurt my toes and feet. I think my mother finally gave up and just bought new socks. As a teenager I bought my own. I chose socks I had seen in Playboy so I could get just the right ones. Thanks for the read.
The socks my mother mended (or later) I didn’t hurt my feet – thank you for sharing this, Don! Would never have thought they could. They only hurt my pride and vanity as a teen. I should have been prouder of the love and skill she put into it …
Loved how you took this. I don’t think socks are holy either, but I was thinking the prompt would hopefully stir the kind of thoughts you had or go In a different direction – some sports players have “lucky” socks they were for game day and I also thought a fantasy/scifi culture could hold up a pair of socks worn by one of the originators of their society, or the whole prompt could be taken in a tongue in cheek direction. Glad you liked it.
Tyrean, it was so much fun! And, again, I learned a lot! <3