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I was out with my girlfriends celebrating a birthday among us.  The path to the restaurant took us past a favorite clothing store of mine, one I always beg my friends to go in, I promise I’m just going to look at socks, really I mean it this time, and then I inevitably veer off toward shoes and general apparel once I’ve gone through the socks.  To avoid being dragged out of the store by my friends, I’ll usually point and say something like “Look!  Elvis!” and then run off in the opposite direction while they’re looking for the King.  What gets me about that technique is not that it works despite the fact that Elvis is dead, it’s that it works repeatedly on the same people.

This time, my friend turned to me and said, “Can you feel the vacuum from the sock store pulling you in?”  And I could, I really could, but what struck me most about that remark was the idea of a store entirely devoted to socks.  If we had such a place in my hometown, I’m not sure I’d ever leave.  I love socks.  I own about four pairs of socks for every pair of shoes.  I talk to my socks when I’m picking out which pair to put on.  I have froggy ankle socks that say “Ribbit” and knee-high stripey socks and full-length argyle tights, and everything in between.  If I pass a store that sells socks, I have to go in.  I have a problem, I know it, and I’m never, ever seeking help.

During my friend’s birthday dinner we were talking about the usual:  boys, hair, what to post on my blog.  I would drift off every so often and start imagining a socks-only store that sold socks of every type and description.  I’d come back to myself and rejoin the conversation only to drift off again a few minutes later.  One of my friends guessed what I was daydreaming of and said, “If that’s what you’re fixated on, I guess there are worse things to obsess over.”  I immediately responded, “Like Johnny Depp.  Ooh!  Shopping for socks with Johnny Depp!”  One friend said, “Now that’s a blog post topic!”  Another friend replied, “That’s a therapy session!”

I like to think we’re all correct.  In my head, I’m shopping for socks with Johnny Depp right now, and it’s marvelous.  I’m sure my therapist will agree.

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