Laundry, dishes, phones, and socks

This is just a rant.

Okay, in the above list, laundry and dishes I have made some begrudging peace with.  I still don't like them, and I think they're unfair in that you are never finished with either chore-- just as soon as you've put the last pair of pants in the closet and underwear in the drawer, you walk past a hamper and there's a t-shirt and pair of jeans in it.  Or a dirty towel.  Worse, a diry towel you somehow missed on the intial laundry pass.  Same for dishes -- no sooner do you drape your flour sack dowel symbolically over the drying rack to bump into someone coming to put a glass in the sink. 

It's futile to get ranty over laundry and dishes, because like so many irritating things, they just are, and it's a waste of time to get ranty.  But I'm not giving up on phones and socks.

Phones.  I hate and love them.  I have a very short list of people I love talking to on the phone, and sometimes people not on the list surprise me and I enjoy talking to them, too.  I would say that I could be fine if my phone never rang, if I could only use it to call out, but that's not true either, because I'm grumpy about phone calls today that I have to make.   There's a LIST.  A phone LIST.  The worst list ever was when we moved here, the whole set-up-utilities-take-down-utilities list.  Ack.  Hated it.  Well, this list is shorter, but not better.

1.  Call the bank.  Say, "I need to give you a really big check, but I don't know for how much money and won't know until Monday.  Except I'll be coming there today.  I live two hours away.  How should we do this?"

I mean, I have no idea how I'd answer me.  I'm sensing either overpaying or an electronic transfer on Monday.  But we have to verifiy that just having the money in our checking account will be enough for them to draw on it.  Arg.

2.  Call the water softening joint and make sure they took out the water softner we rented.  And that they gave our realtor the key.  Okay, that one's not so tough.

3.  Call the lawn people and tell them to stop mowing the lawn because I won't own the house past Wednesday.  Except I fear jinxing the sale and want to call them, um, Wednesday.

4.  Call the insurance guy and figure out what he needs with this paper he sent us and what we do because our insurance expires the 16th but the closing is the 17th.  Pray for no fire?

5.  Call my friend the doctor who we'll visit while we're down for the day, and try to strike the balance between concerned and too-chipper, because her daughter, who is my daughter's age (3), has just been diagnosed with leukemia.  Because of course the leukemia depresses and scares me, but like she needs any more of that.

Is it any wonder I'm still in my pajamas at 10:30, blogging myself into insanity, hitting refresh on my email, and wishing someone I DO want to talk to would call?

Okay, so the list doesn't sound so bad to people who don't hate the phone.  I can respect that.  I still hate calling.  Especially since three of the five involve more than just, "Hey, you should know this/please do this.  Thanks.  Bye."  The rest are stuff.  And the latter is someone I enjoy calling, but I have to get my head straight first.  Don't want to bug.  But, don't want to not bug.  Arg.

And we haven't even covered the socks.  Let's get to them.

Socks.  You know, they suck.  First of all, they're expensive as hell.  REALLY expensive if you have big feet like me and don't want to wear guy socks.  And even the guy socks can be expensive, unless you get them at Wal-Mart, but then you have the whole supporting-the-retailer-of-Satan thing to feel bad about, not to mention wondering what two year old stitched her finger together so you could have cheap socks.  And you know, I could handle expensive socks if it weren't for all the reasons socks SUCK.

1.  They get lost.  All the damn time. 
2.  They wear out way too fast.
3.  They SHRINK, the little sneaky bastards.
4.  They get balled up in the laundry basket, then don't get clean in the washer, set the stains in the dryer, and -- wait for it -- are still balled up and DON'T DRY.
5.  They're boring.  Really fucking boring.  Unless you have cute petite feet and can shop at novelty sock stores and buy the socks for "shoe size 9-11."  Well, baby, I wear size 13.

So you know, soon here I'm going to just make my own.  If I'm going to pay ten dollars for a pair of socks, I'm going to have them be in beautiful pastel sock yarn, will have sweated over their creation, and will love them eternally because they not only fit and don't shrink because I will wash them tenderly -- I will also wash them together, unballed, in a sock washing ceremony, and all will be good.

Except this will only work for my socks.  I don't think I'm going to convince my husband to wear pastel striped socks to work, though personally I think it could be a good conversation starter.  I could make my daughter socks, but her feet grow fast.  Of course, they are a third the size of mine, so the sock making could go faster.  And SHE would appreciate socks worth fussing over.  Hmm.  This could be a plan.  Because her socks are really crazy expensive. 

Well.  I'm not cranky anymore.  I'm going to go finish laundry, take my shower, ignore my phone list and do the dishes in the sink and plan my Sock Revolution.