The Case of the Missing Socks
A man declares war on his laundry machine after it continuously eats his socks, leading to a series of hilarious and absurd events.
It was a conspiracy. There was no other explanation. For months, I had been losing socks. Not pairs, just single socks. Lefts, mostly. My sock drawer was a graveyard of lonely rights. My prime suspect? The washing machine. It looked innocent, sitting there humming peacefully, but I knew it was a monster.
I decided to fight back. I started by labeling my socks with permanent marker. 'Socky 1,' 'Socky 2.' They still vanished. Next, I tried safety-pinning them together. The machine just ate them both. I was furious. I started talking to it, pleading with it. "Just give me back my argyle," I'd beg. It responded by eating a brand-new pair of novelty pizza socks.
The final straw came when my lucky socks, the ones I wore for every important meeting, disappeared. That's it. War was declared. I bought a tiny waterproof camera, taped it to the inside of the drum, and started a cycle. I watched the live feed, my heart pounding. For twenty minutes, nothing but a swirling vortex of clothes. And then, I saw it. A tiny crack in the back of the drum, just big enough for a sock to slip through. The machine wasn't eating them; it was smuggling them. It was a sock liberation front. I have no idea where they go from there, but at least I know I'm not crazy.