h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know that this is an old chestnut, but I think that I have a solution to the age
old problem.

Chain letters.

You know how they work, just send one pound (dollar, franc, peseta etc) to the
person at the top of the list.

By the end of next month I should have 128,544 odd socks. There would have
to be a matching pair in that lot.

did you ever get a single letter back from those chain letters when you were a kid? I didn't

I kind of just did!

By the way as you posted your response TC, 10 socks just poped into existence in my drawers!

To drag the British-American thing in here... if you are American, do you realise that drawers are underpants?

That's nothing - I've heard that American men tend to wear suspenders

P.S. I have been buying nothing but standard black cotton socks for the last couple of years or so...and I still have odd socks on

Yes TC, drawers are underpants,pants,knickers here too. Double entendre was intended. Sorry. A bit too much like "Carry on up the Laundry" for my own liking.

By the way, pants is a current curse here in UK. As in Greenday (U2, Dire Straits etc) are pants.

Yes I'd heard that, but would be a bit wary of how to use it myself. Nevertheless - don't get ya knickers in a twist

U2 and Green Day are pants??? Blasphemy!!!!

Modern slang, now there's thing..

"Me hair's gone all Pete Tong"! (ie. wrong)

OK. This may be spinning off into the direction of a fully fledged American-English thing, but...

Knowing what we now know would an American be happy to "bum a fag". As an English person (even though I don't smoke, I find this Quite inoffensive.

OK. This may be spinning off into the direction of a fully fledged American-English thing, but...

Knowing what we now know would an American be happy to "bum a fag". As an English person (even though I don't smoke, I find this Quite inoffensive.

How did I do that?

Oh God. I'm talking to myself!

We're all looking for sox.

Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. The third sign is hairs on the palms of your hands.

(Various people start checking their hands.)

The second sign of madness is *looking* for hairs on the palms of your hands!

(School-yard humour there. That one dates back to when I was about 8 years old.)

I remember it, too. Perhaps we should knit spare socks out of the hairs on the palms of our hands.

I reckon there is a sock eating monster in my washing machine and one of these days I'm going to catch it.Then I will display it for vast sums of money and then I can replace all my odd socks.

Duncan at least it is possible to 'get away'with odd black socks but it doesn't work with orange and green socks.I tried buying black socks for everyone but somehow we all ended up with one sock less each time.I ended up with no socks at all so I was forced to go back to coloured socks.The inevitable happened of course.My husband keeps telling me to throw the drawerful of odd socks away but I JUST KNOW that IF I DO THAT the odd socks will turn up and i will have another drawer of odd socks.

Do you think this is why Don Johnson never wore socks in Miami Vice?He never had a matching pair.

I must confess here. When I find a sock with holes in it, I chuck it away. I may never find the other one, so that leaves a few odd ones of my own doing. sorry.

BTW there is a web site in Germany called "the lost sock" You put in the details of your sock and hope someone comes up with the other one.

The guy on the radio tried it out for a laugh and his sock turned up in Munich, 600 km away, according to the site's database. He probably never did find the sock, but met up with a nice young lady from Munich and organised a date that very night - the phone call was played on the radio.

Perhaps the purpose of sox getting lost is to stop our race dying out.

I have a very unusual "sock gremlin" in my washing machine. I wear white socks when I'm lounging around at home. Sometimes the washing machine steals a sock. This is normal, and I have a few odd socks lying around. *However*, sometimes the gremlin throws a sock back. I'm very careful to separate light things from coloured things as the colours always run. The gremlin never throws the sock back into the light wash. Oh dear me, no! He always waits until I'm washing something that's a really strong colour and then throws the sock back. I now have a 'pair' of socks where one is white and the other is green! Oh, and before anybody asks, I'm always carefull to check that the machine really *is* empty before I put the next load in. The gremlin is out to get me, I just know it!

I have ***23*** odd socks
Is this a record?