Try to remember how many socks you have in your drawer waiting to find your lost pair. The mystery of the mismatched sock can lead you to think that, in addition to the garment in question, you have lost your mind. They both went into the washing machine and, however, when you empty the drum and hang up the clean clothes, only one appears. It seems so unlikely that the sock has disappeared permanently that he saves the one that remains for when his partner shows up. And so not once or twice, but many times. A study carried out by Samsung He quantified them and established that each year a person loses on average about 15 socks and, throughout their entire life, 1,264 will be left behind.
But where do these lost socks go? Is the washing machine a magical portal for small-sized clothes that makes them simply disappear? Do they disintegrate during spinning? These are some of the questions that the South Korean company wanted to answer scientifically. To do this, he put psychologist Simon Moore and statistician Geoff Ellis to work, who concluded, after numerous surveys, that some socks are lost before reaching the washing machine: they fall behind radiators or under furniture without that no one notices.
This is when different psychological factors come into play. One of them is visual awareness or heuristics, “mental shortcuts that we use to solve problems, saving time and effort.” This means that when we lose something we look for it in the most likely place it could be and, if it is not there, it is one of those places, we consider it lost and do not invest any more time in it. The attention we pay during the household tasks that are most tedious also comes into play, which is usually between little and none. These scientists created a mathematical formula according to which it was possible to find out how many socks we could lose depending on certain factors, such as the number of washing machines we use per week, the number of people who live under the same roof and the complexity of the washing, That is, if we separate white clothes from colored clothes, if we put a laundry only for cotton clothes, etc.
Another more recent study was carried out by the Institute of Science Whirlpool and this did confirm what had always been suspected: the washing machine swallows the socks. According to the appliance company, the socks would remain in a kind of limbo: the space between the exterior and interior drums of top-loading washing machines or under the rubber in the case of those that wash frontally. Places all of them that are out of sight and that would result in mystery. Cathy Hind, who manages rental apartments in the United States with her husband, shared her discovery on the portal Bored Panda. When disassembling the washing machines in some of these buildings to repair them, they found dozens of socks trapped and which their owners at some point considered missing.
To find out if it is possible to end the curse of the mismatched sock once and for all, we asked the person who knows the most about order on Instagram: Bego, the Orderress. The order expert answers what we feared, “having a disciplined routine” is key. In her case, with seven children, this discipline is key and each one is responsible for managing her dirty clothes, taking them to the washing basket. To make it easier to identify the owner of the sock later, each one has its own small washing mesh where socks and underwear are placed. This way, they are located at all times and there is no chance of any wayward sock ending up in sock limbo. The Order goes one step further and labels all the socks with the name of their owner, including the executive socks, “in this case, instead of on the sole of the foot, which, being thinner, can be more annoying, I do it below of the leg elastic. It's usually a high sock, so you can't see it.” The expert does not recommend tying them to put them in the washing machine because in this way “they do not wash well since it does not allow water and soap to enter. Always with the washing mesh,” she says.
Thus one of the most common domestic mysteries would be solved and the solution so that no more sock is left without its partner would be within reach: pay more attention when washing and storing clothes and always wash them in a special laundry net. . Or you can continue to proudly celebrate World Lost Sock Day, which takes place every May 9.
#socks #disappear