Stripes, colors, and mathmatical craziness

So, we all know that I love socks, right? Good.

Because this is a tale of how socks one again nearly ruined my day. See, I did a strange thing this morning. Usually, I decide what I want to wear, then pick socks. This seems the normal, rational, acceptable thing to do. Yesterday, I was weird, irrational and unacceptable.

I opened my sock drawer, and pulled out socks. I put them on--before having even the vaguest clue what I wanted to wear. I thought I was doing myself a favor by narrowing down my choices a little bit. I chose a tri-colored stipped knee-high sock, giving me 3 colors, and the associated complimentary colors to choose from, and that pallette includes about 84% of my closet. That's just an estimated number. I haven't actually measured the volume of my closet and the amount of space each color takes up inside my closet... but now I really want to!

Back to the socks. So, wearing my socks of choice, I step into the closet to pick out an outfit. This should be easy. Blue, grey, purple stripped socks give me lots of options. I start with the shirts, because bottoms are basic and will be determined by the top. I bypass the turtlenecks, because even though I find them to be the best thing about this time of year next to sweet potatoes, holiday parties, and twinkling lights, I wore one yesterday, and the one to best match my socks was in the dirty clothes. So I looked over t-shirts, but decided against them in favor of longer sleeves. I looked through the hanging shirts, and briefly lost my mind when I fell in love all over again with one of my 3 orange shirts. This one is a deep rust color with lovely 3/4 length sleeves and a cowl neck. It drapes beautifully, and looks smashing with my hair... I pull it off the hangar, reach for my chocolate brown trousers and...

HALT! I'm wearing blue, purple and grey socks! No yummy orange shirt of lovely rustiness for me. No drapey cowl neck. No chocolate pants with brown glittery flats. No! Let’s overlook the fact that I could, conceivably just change my socks, go pick out something from the sock drawer that was brown, because I don’t own any orange, rust, or other tonally appropriate socks. (I also don’t own any yellow socks, for those of you who are wondering what to get me for the next gift-giving holiday.) We’re going to overlook that option, because it honestly didn’t even occur to me.

These are great socks. They’re fun. They’re warm. They declare my whimsy and willingness to look ridiculous in public.

Because I went back to the rejected t-shirts (why don’t we call them Q-shirts, or J-shirts, or other more fun letters?) and grabbed a blue polo, a purple crew neck, and a long black cardigan-type-entity that I (possibly erroneously) call a duster, a charcoal grey mid-calf length wool skirt, and my comfiest slip-on Mary Jane type shoes.

There! An outfit! For these socks!

That was yesterday. Today, I am bedecked in rust and chocolate and all is well.