Missing

Let's talk laundry for a moment. 

I'll start by saying that I actually enjoy doing laundry. It is not a dreaded chore to me. Yes, it is relentless and never-ending, but I'm thankful that I have a washer and dryer at my convenience and that I have clothes to launder. It is meditative and I feel accomplished. I also really like good smelling laundry detergent, though I don't have that on a regular basis (it costs more to get a brand that has the long-lasting scent...and because the main reason for the detergent is to clean, it is not really worth the extra expense for the scent, but I digress.)

What I'm really here to document is the mystery of missing socks. For all the years I have been doing laundry, there regularly comes a time when I end up with a mismatched sock, that I know previously had a match. When I get a mismatch, it ends up on the nearby windowsill (no, this is not a logical spot for storing mismatched sock but that just happens to be where they "go" because that is near where I always fold laundry on the back of the couch in the living room.) 

Eventually, at some future moment in the laundry, I will get another mismatched sock, put it on the windowsill and serendipitously realize that the pair has been reunited! (NOTE: Continued from above - If I were to store mismatched socks somewhere else, I would likely forget where that "somewhere else was", and would miss the thrill of the reunification!) Anyways, this type of separation clearly happens when the two socks became sorted into different piles of laundry. This is all fine and good and ultimately results with a happy ending.

But what about the sock that lives on the windowsill for months?? Why has its pair never appeared? This is what I do not understand. Perhaps:

• somebody gets a hole in one sock and throws it away without me realizing (this is incredibly rare as I have discovered that my family doesn't seem to mind wearing holey socks)
• sock falls behind the washing machine when the laundry is being dumped in (but I do check here periodically)

The only conclusion: the dryer is eating a sock from time to time. 😌

If you have a better theory, please let me know.