Early this year I had a hysterectomy. Because of that my mother came and stayed with us for a few weeks. Something that I will forever be grateful for, because this ship needs constant upkeep and supervision or it will go down in flames. One day, the kids and I were in the living room and Mom picked up a sock and said, “Is this clean or dirty?” It had been on the floor, but in the chair above it was the latest load of clean laundry waiting to be folded. So the condition of the sock was really anyone’s guess. I looked at the sock, then over to my 11 year old son, General,
“You sniff it.” I said.
He replied with much hesitation and resistance, and I looked at him and said, “No, this is your sock, and you are not going to make your Oma smell it. You sniff it to see if it’s clean or dirty.”
My Mom giggled at this, and handed him the sock. He took a big whiff and then shrugged his shoulders and said, “I can’t tell Mom, can you check?” and handed me the sock.
I’m not sure why, but I took the sock and put it to my nose. His face told me that he truly didn’t know if the sock was clean or dirty and he needed my help to figure it out. The sock smelled, and it smelled bad. But, because of the conviction in my first born’s eyes, I wasn’t able to declare the sock dirty even though my eyes started to water a little bit. So, I took the sock and handed it to my Mother, and said,
“I’m not sure mom, what do you think?”
She took the sock, put it to her nose, and drew in deeply. Then she coughed a little. We both looked over at General, who as our gaze hit him, burst out into laughter. Not just a little laugh, he laughed so hard, he fell out of his chair and his face turned red. He eventually got the words out,
“I wore those socks for two days straight and I got you BOTH to sniff them!!!”
The lesson here folks is: Always wash the socks.
Assume they are dirty and wash them again.
