Today in Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us, we get to talk about socks! More specifically, we get to talk about those pesky socks that presumably go into the laundry as a pair, yet somehow come out companionless. Y’all know what I’m talking about. It’s Unsolved Mysteries: Socks Edition. Actor Oliver Hudson is just like us. He has a huge collection of mysteriously pairless socks. In a post that he shared to Instagram this week, Hudson posted a picture of a pile of said socks (below), expressing his relatable disbelief, saying:
This is 100 percent real.. These are all single socks that have lost their mates. I can’t wrap my head around this.
I was just thinking about this topic as I was folding laundry over the weekend! Last week, I had that rare batch of laundry where every single sock had a match. I was floored, and immediately thought, “OMG, Rosie, it’s both sad and incredible that you’re this excited about having complete sets of socks in a laundry load.” So, when I saw Oliver’s post, I laughed and felt vindicated that I’m not the only person who knows this struggle. Sadly, this week, not only did I have an unmatched sock in my kids’ laundry, I also had another one of their unmatched socks that popped up in my laundry. It’s like, where do they go? Is there some kind of washing machine vortex that sucks them into another dimension? Were they ever in there to begin with? Where is the missing sock?!
Hudson has been married to actress Erinn Bartlett since 2006 and they have three children together, ages 16, 13, and 10. Judging by that picture, that family has a lot of missing socks! I both love and shudder at the chaos in that pile. It’s like a puzzle that calls out to me to solve. My kids love wearing mismatched socks, but it drives me crazy because I am a completionist. I also keep socks without pairs to the side, in the hopes that they won’t be lonely for long. Sometimes, the mystery in my house is solved when I find a sock that randomly attached itself to another article of clothing. Once, I cleaned out behind a couch and found a couple that had migrated that way. But I think the most bewildering thing is when you find a missing sock in a load of laundry that’s done two or three weeks later, when it has absolutely NO business being in there. But, voilà!, there it is. It’s almost like it was abducted by sock aliens, then returned back to Planet Kenmore once it had served its purpose. But seriously, where do the missing socks go? In a world full of mysteries, this is one of the ones that’s top 10 on my list of needing an answer to.
photos credit: PacificCoastNews / Avalon, Getty and via Instagram
Absolutely a problem in my house, too. I keep a bin of the misfit socks hoping to match them. For some, it will never happen.
I have a full bag of divorced socks. I have absolutely no idea how tf we got to this point. Once in a while I will find one in a random place but will not be able to the other one that was supposed to be IN THE BAG. WTF
Mismatched socks are becoming more and more trendy, so you can be fashionable with them 😉
Definitely the Thom Browne 2024 look.
I love the term divorced socks 🤣🤣
Same, it’s mostly my kids socks but the pile of their socks that have been sitting on my dresser that I just need to give up on is huge. I don’t get it, what are they doing with them?
There is no sense of satisfaction quite like finding a hole in one of your kids socks and being able to throw it away and replace it with a matching sock that had been orphaned. Two great accomplishments at once!
We also have an unknown sock-stealing creature that regularly strikes sometime between the wash entering the laundry basket or washing machine and the stage where you fold the clean, dry laundry. I also have kids who get attached to older socks and when one gets a huge hole, they still keep and wear the other. Hence, when I wind up folding the socks, there’s the normal pairs and then there’s the kids’ pile on the sofa. They come and sort out their spares if they didn’t fold the clothes and they’re happy, the wash is clean, and the unseen sock critter is appeased.
I do have a sock stealing dog. He will grab any sock on the floor and bring it to one of his snuggle spots. If I don’t check every day, he will have a dozen different socks tucked into couches.
Omg, StellaInNH, that sounds (really inconvenient but) so cute! A long time ago I had a canine shoe thief 🥰
I have socks that I wear to pilates, you know, the grippy toe socks? They’ve started disappearing. It’s so frustrating because I can’t mix and match them. They’re also all weird colors, because I buy them on sale and it usually the colors nobody wants. I have no idea where they are going!
From an old daily calendar of joke definitions from some years back: “hozone – the place where one sock in every load ends up.” Can’t take credit for coming up with it but never forgot it!
I always wondered if there’s some sort of secret filter or something in a washing machine that snags them!
Well, not exactly wrong.
https://reviewed.usatoday.com/laundry/features/youre-not-crazy-your-socks-really-can-disappear-in-the-wash
I love this post! Important issues. Where the f*ck are my socks? I’m not being sarcastic. We have quite a basket with only two people. So, then, during Covid, a quarter of them were found while cleaning everything. Underneath the bed/couch, behind a dresser????. We’re not throwers of socks but yet there was a singleton. Poltergeists!!!! The only plausible explanation.lol A Nobel Peace Prize needs to be given to someone who solves this mystery of missing socks. LOLing because I have woken up with one sock on and one sock off???
One of my kids only wears mis-matched socks.
In my house, socks go missing in 1 of 2 ways – My little yorkie or (we found out during repairs) the inside the washer via an opening under the top but over the drum. Lovely.
Is this a family thing, or when people are doing laundry for multiple people? I’ve never understood the jokes about missing socks because I’ve never lost a sock in my life. Socks go in the hamper, then the washing machine, then the dryer, then sorted and back in the drawer. If one gets dropped, I pick it up- where else would it go? But I’m only doing my own laundry and I don’t have a pet, so I guess that’s the joke?
I don’t have children and I do my own laundry and have lost plenty of socks while doing laundry.
Really??? Gotta say, you’re a rarity I think. I’m single & child-free & have had missing socks from time to time. I remember once using a solo sock as a holder for my work camera–ever my mother’s daughter, I couldn’t just throw away a perfectly decent sock–and I swear, years later its mate just sort of magically appeared. Sometimes my sock loss is temporary–I’ll find one hiding behind the laundry basket or behind the washer or behind the dryer, sometimes one will be stuck inside the washer & I just didn’t spot it–and sometimes, well, it’s years.
I’ve realized a lot of my missing socks would fold up in the bedsheets when I’d wash them together so I stopped. But still missing socks! Whoever discovers the mystery behind this I’d love for them to win the Nobel Prize. Seriously.
Most of the kids who come to the pediatric clinic where I work wear mismatched socks. I think it’s a trend. I’ve been wearing mismatched socks for years because nobody can see my socks under my scrub pants. Black and navy go with everything 🤣!
Now that my kids are adults and out of the house, I never have missing sock’s but occasionally my husband will, weird.
My theory is the more socks you have, the more likely it is one or some will go missing. (Look at the size of the pile of mismatched socks. That’s a lot of socks in general much less to be a pile of orphans.)
I used to have an entire basket of unmatched socks. One day in a fit of frustration I dumped them all in the trash. Not one single person in my house has missed them. Not even the dog.
It’s a huge problem in my house. We bought a house near the beach about seven years ago that gets used by various family members of all ages. There is always a jumble of clothes, towels and bedding in the laundry room and that includes socks.
I have literally given up on trying to reunite separated pairs. If I find a single sock in the dryer and it’s mate is nowhere to be found, it goes in the rag bag or the trash, depending on its condition.
Every once in a while, I put on a show or movie and dump my basket of odd socks on the floor and try to match them. I always find a few matches. It’s one of those things that makes me feel like I’m being productive, when really I’m watching TV in the middle of the day.
But as 2 of my 3 kids are away at college now, I think it’s probably time to just toss the socks. Some of them have been in that basket for YEARS.
++Have done that too and it’s a score if you’ve found matches! I just want to find a group/charity that takes singleton socks. Don’t like throwing them away. Don’t want to feel like an a**hole only giving mismatched socks to a shelter, they deserve better. But, since people mentioned mismatched socks are a trend, that might be a good option to donate the singletons too.
All laundries appear to random Bermuda triangles for socks. We have a sock bag. I’m sure some socks have languishes pair less in there for years. I can’t throw some out for fear their partner will finally show up one day. I need to do better.
Guess I’m the odd one- I never have missing socks. One, I’m just doing my own laundry, so that probably helps a ton. Two, I don’t like wearing them, so I’m only wearing them out of the house and thus when I get home they go straight into the laundry basket when I change. My bf loses socks when he takes them off at the side of the bed, or on the couch, and then they migrate and disappear.
You are definitely an anomaly.
I’m single, child free, do my own laundry at home and still end up with missing socks. Most annoying is it’s usually the really expensive running socks that get separated. I’ll wear mismatched colors but then it’s finding 2 of the same thickness or can only find all socks for the left foot (maybe a running sock thing but there is a difference in how the l and r foot feel), etc.
He sure has a lot of socks with pot leaves on them heheheh.
I spotted that, too. Overall, I think I think he could toss the whole lot. They’re some pretty ugly socks!
If you told me Oliver Hudson was related to Michael Douglas I’d believe you.
Now that you mention it, when he was younger his biological father looked a lot like Michael Douglas.
I don’t think Bill Hudson ever looked like Michael Douglas.
He’s a good-looking guy. I always have to check to confirm that he’s Kate Hudson’s brother (and Goldie Hawn’s son).
Also, I wear mismatched socks all the time, not because it’s trendy but because I don’t care enough to match two different black socks.
Okay, Rosie, I have never heard it described as being a “completionist”, and this new word is going to make it SO much easier to explain why I am incapable of not finishing a book, even if I truly despise it, etc.
Thank you, I love that one word solves endless explanations.
You’re welcome!
I’m 48 and I’ve never lost a sock when doing the laundry??
Sorry… ???
(hides in shame..)