More stitchin'

Darn it! One of my perpetual socks.

Socks are the new candy. Stand in front of the counter at most sports shops, and you will find an array of supposedly extremely advanced "technical" socks. Some are made for running, some for walking, and some for cross country skiing. And so on. On the packaging you will typically see exploded diagrams of the interior workings of these socks. More r&d have gone into these than the space shuttle, it seems.

The psychology behind all this is very transparent. In a super market, you see candy and magazines right in front of you while waiting for your turn, and you think to yourself, boy, some sweets would be nice. Socks work the same way. Wouldn't it be nice to have really, really good socks, I mutter to myself while waiting for the opportunity to pay for ski wax or whatever.

Buy ten pairs of these socks, and you've spent as much as you would for a small computer. I'm not making this up.

I'm not really that upset about the money part. Though I'm not rolling in moolah, I earn much more than I deserve and I could probably buy all the socks I want. I'm just upset that normal, and just as comfortable and durable socks, can now only be obtained in army surplus stores and those places that sell work clothes. The high tech socks are not particularily long-lasting, and of course the companies that make them haven't really made socks that are fine-tuned for snowboarding or running, they've just played around with the colors and different types of synthetic fibres.

So as one of rather few employed western males, I darn my socks. I'm so vain about this I even use contrasting colors on purpose. Not that a lot of people ever see my socks, and if they did, I might not really blow their minds. But I get a kick out of it, and I'm not hurting anyone.

A method I find works well is to stuff a thermos in a sock while darning it. This way you make sure you don't end up darning both sides of the sock together. There are specialized "darning eggs" out of wood out there, but I'll need to make myself a lathe before i ever get one of those.