How to Practice Safe Socks
As I was putting on my socks this morning I had a recollection of a conversation I overheard one day when I was traveling through LAX airport. It was a conversation that caught me off guard but one that has stuck with me and now as a frugal blogger is relevant, but funny.
The Setup
I was in a terminal at LAX and I was waiting to get on a flight to head to Reno, NV, which was the closest airport to home at the time. I was sitting there probably tired since that’s usually the way airports make me feel when I saw a tall cowboy hat wearing man and his son walk past us, and then curve around to some seats behind us. I didn’t think much of their sitting there at the time and minded my own business. I try not to eaves drop too much lest I make it a habit or find out things I ought not to know. When you work around confidentiality long enough you begin to learn that knowing the dirt isn’t useful very often because its a liability.
However, I was at once awakened by the sound of the father chewing out his son for taking off his socks and boots. The son was scolded and told to put his socks and boots back on. What happened next is the part that has stuck in my mind over and over replaying to my own private comedy theater: the father scolded the son for putting his socks on the wrong way. Not the wrong foot, not inside out, not on his hands… but the wrong way. You see, there is a frugal way to put your socks on.
The correct method to put your socks on helps preserve the sock, make application to the foot simpler, and saves cowboy daddy hundreds of dollars in socks, I’m sure. To correctly apply the sock you must use your thumbs on the inside of the sock and roll it down into a very short tube in contrast to the long tube of a tube sock. You then put your toes into the small cup that you have created and slowly pull the sock up your leg unrolling the tube as you go. This serves two purposes: 1) It allows you to be a perfectionist about how your sock goes onto your foot and 2) it preserves the elastic bands in the sock so as to allow the sock to give you decades of good service. Assuming that a growing boy, which in this case was the case, wears the same size sock for decades.
I find this amusing, but do you think this is great frugality, normal for you, or super cheap?
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December 4th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I’m the kind of guy who thinks of stuff like that. I get it from my mom. When I was growing up in Amarillo, she would drive miles out of her way to refill her 32 oz mug with Coke for 39 cents at a particular gas station. Keep in mind gas was around $1 a gallon then, so it was probably a break even proposition at the time. But the euphoria of getting such a “good deal” was enough to make it worth the effort. Of course, she would then turn around and spend hundreds of dollars on antique furniture that she didn’t have room for.
So I’m kind of like that. I’ll refill a gallon jug of “spring water” from the tap over and over rather than buying a new one. But then I’ll turn right around and spend a hundred bucks on some toy for myself. I suppose I am a financial bulimic. Just like Mom.