We Need To Talk About the Seasonal Socks Problem

It’s been the elephant in the room long enough

What is a seasonal sock?

Socks, plural. You can have a single sock but it’s useless, except for my eleven-year-old son who doesn’t sort socks or care if they match.

But I digress. A seasonal sock is related to a specific time of year, usually a holiday. Chez Metzger that’s mostly Christmas and Halloween with a smattering of Easter and one St. Paddy’s Day, but I imagine less Eurocentric households have Diwali, Lunar New Year, and other diverse socks.

So the problem is that you don’t like seasonal socks?

No, I love them. Sometimes I take unnecessary trips on the subway just so I can cross my legs and let my pants ride up my calf, hoping that other passengers will be impressed by my nifty Jack-O-Lantern socks.

So what’s the problem?

Apparently I have to explain everything to you. The problem is that you can only wear seasonal socks for a month to six weeks before the event they celebrate, so most of the year they’re just sitting around gathering dust. Seeing them parked in the drawer, their potential wasted, makes me sad.

Why don’t you just wear them year-round then?

Theoretically you could, just like theoretically you could jump into a pit full of jackals wearing bacon underpants. But apart from the social opprobrium and people laughing because you’re sporting Santa Godzilla hosiery in May, it’s just morally wrong. You know it, I know it, the socks know it. Socks have consciousness, albeit limited, and if you piss them off they disappear from the dryer.

Even if I accept your underlying premise, which I’m not sure I do, how about just not buying seasonal socks?

No one buys seasonal socks, that would be nuts. You only get them as gifts which you’re too polite to return.

Isn’t this kind of a trivial issue in a world beset by problems like climate change, war, and the decline of democracy?

You’re thinking this is a First World problem, or a White Person problem, or a How Can I Wring 500 Words For Medium Out of a Flimsy Premise problem. But can we have truly fulfilled lives if our feet are unsatisfied?

I assume you have a solution for this problem you’ve invented.

I don’t much care for your tone, but yes. It’s a simple matter of celebrating holidays all year round. We’ve already established a template with Christmas, which runs from the end of October to the end of December. By simply extending it further and dumping in all the other festive seasons, we offer people the option to celebrate on any date convenient for them, while also allowing full-year seasonal sock solutions.