Socks

When I was little, I used to wear rubber bands around my wrist like they were bangles. For a time, my papa's mother, Granny Mary, lived with us. She was a woman so set in her ways, a hurricane couldn't blow her off course. She would always grab my wrist and take the rubber bands off. She'd say, "You're going to cord your wrist and cut off circulation! Your hand will fall off!" She would cut a slit in her socks right at the top so that they didn't "cord her ankles" and her socks would just slouch around her skinny little ankles. Then, she would complain that her socks were too big.

Fast forward 15 years and I'm still wearing rubberbands around my wrists. It's more a matter of fuction over fashion now, though. Granny Mary has passed on since, but she passed down her sock cutting habit to her son. You see, my papa has chicken legs. There's no way around it. When I was about 12 years old, I remember him putting on some denim bermuda shorts he had cut off back in the 70's to come out to the pool with us. His legs were so white they were blinding. And skinny! He always says some nonsense about his legs being in peak physical condition, but they're all bone. I say that to say this, there is absolutely no way that a sock is going to cord his leg to the point that it needs to be amputated. Regardless of this, he cuts his socks just the way his mother did. In his sock drawer are countless pairs of socks, all neatly folded and in their places, with a little "v" notch cut out at the top. Granny and I always laugh and talk about it when we come across them in the laundry.

It seems that the older he gets, the more he becomes like Granny Mary. Let's just hope he doesn't start hiding his money around the house!