The sad story of Rachel's socks

Keeping matching, hole free socks and stockings has never been my strong point and living in Korea has changed nothing. What has changed however, is the glaring exposure of this fault of mine. My whole life I have struggled to find matching socks. I'm convinced that washing machines hate me and randomly decide to devour my socks (but only one at a time), leaving no evidence or trace of my missing sock. As a runner and an active person it seems that my brand new socks acquire new holes in no time and I'm generally too cheap (see the previous post for examples of this) and lazy to bother replacing my holey socks frequently; therefore I just wear whatever socks I can find be they holey or not matching. Moving to Korea in a cozy studio apartment with a washing machine designated only for my personal use and no dryer, I optimistically hoped that my sock woes would end. Yes, I've been told numerous times by wiser people than myself that I could simply pin my socks together. But I'm too stubborn and lazy to ever attempt this technique.

Now, in the U.S. my problem with socks could usually be kept hidden or at least from people who would judge my poor sock habits. I only wore socks in winter when I was forced to wear closed toe shoes (although when I was young I stubbornly tried to get away with never wearing socks only to eventually discover that wearing closed toe shoes without socks yields stinky feet) or when running. Rarely did anyone have to view my mismatched socks with my toes peeking out. Alas, in Korea I can no longer hide my faults. Even though my apartment is small I have still managed to lose several individual socks and every time I buy stockings or tights in the blink of an eye they have acquired a new hole. I often randomly and without notice get invited to teachers' dinners after school, leaving me without sufficient time to prepare the proper sockware to hide my bad habit (i.e. wear one of my few matching and hole free pairs of socks to school that day). In traditional Korean restaurants it is mandatory to take your shoes off when entering the seating area and failure to do so is considered rude. To make matters worse we sit on the floor so I can't simply hide the evidence by putting my feet under the table.

Unfortunately, I am a slow learner and don't really care what people think of me, so even after seven months I have not purchased a single pair of new socks and I continually risk wearing my holey mismatched socks to work. Stay tuned for the day that I "splurge" and buy multiple pairs of the funny 1,000 won socks that can be found on street corners, near subway stations and in department stores all over Korea and proudly take off my shoes. But this day won't be happening anytime soon.

Keep wearing these?

Or "waste" 1,000 won on Korean socks?

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