{"id":4397,"date":"2025-02-28T12:52:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=4397"},"modified":"2025-02-28T12:52:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:52:38","slug":"look-listen-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=4397","title":{"rendered":"Look, Listen, Buy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story spark was \u2013 Laugh Lines. The writing prompt I took was: A time in your life that knocked your socks off.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Look, Listen, Buy?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, this will sound weird, but I have a problem with socks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, I know we all have problems with socks. You are convinced you put a pair in the laundry and when you empty the dryer, lo and behold, you only have a singleton. What happened to the other sock?<\/span><\/p>\n

That is not the problem I have.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me backtrack a bit and fill you in on where I\u2019m at.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last Thursday, I took a trip to the city. I planned to see a few museums, have lunch at a cheap restaurant, and then take the train back home. As I left home to catch the train, I noticed I had inadvertently put on two singleton socks that didn\u2019t match. Not wanting to miss the train, I decided not to go back and change. After all, I was going to the city, and people who walk around with mismatched socks wouldn\u2019t be noticed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, as I walked around the city, people must have noticed. For every person I passed, looked down at my feet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As I crossed 5th Avenue I spotted one of those street vendors. You know, the ones you always look the other way so that they don\u2019t try to sell you anything. This time was different. The woman doing the selling was selling socks. I asked her how much the socks cost and what they were made of. You see, I\u2019m allergic to wool and wouldn\u2019t want anything made of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

She spoke with a foreign accent that I couldn\u2019t recognize and said something about socks, magic, perfect fit, and never need washing.<\/span><\/p>\n

None of that made sense, but I saw ones that matched what I was wearing and I bought a pair. It was a steep price, but I figured it sounded okay if they fit and I didn\u2019t have to wash them often.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I found a place where I could sit down, change into them, and continue my city trip. No one glanced at all at my feet the rest of the journey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That night when I got home and undressed for bed, a strange thing happened when I took my shoes off. The socks pretty much took themselves off without me touching them. When I got up and dressed in the morning, as soon as I put my pants on, these same socks put themselves on me. I never laid a hand on them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This has continued since last Thursday! I can\u2019t get rid of these socks. No matter where I put them, they seem to find me. No wonder she said they never need to be washed. They won\u2019t leave my feet alone long enough to get washed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Think of it, if you had only one pair of socks that lasted forever, would you need any other socks? Well, YES, unless you happen to wear the same colored outfit every day. These socks don\u2019t go along with most of what I wear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m now back in the city to find that vendor again. But she doesn\u2019t exist, and no one I\u2019ve spoken to has even heard of her. I\u2019m not sure what to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not wanting to go home empty-handed, I just made another purchase before I leave the city. I found a vendor selling a really cool looking sweatshirt. Yeah, the color isn\u2019t the greatest, but I can live with that. It says, \u201cLook Before You Leap.\u201d\u00a0 I really like that quote. He mumbled something about magic I didn\u2019t quite understand, but the price was ridiculously cheap. For that price, \u201cWhat could possibly go wrong?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story spark was \u2013 Laugh Lines. The writing prompt I took was: A time in your life that knocked your socks off.   Look, Listen, Buy?   Now, this will sound weird, but I have a problem with socks.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[480,177],"class_list":["post-4397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-stories","category-story-writing","tag-socks","tag-writing-prompt"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4400,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397\/revisions\/4400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}