Once A Year (Whether We Need It Or Not)

I’ll bet you thought I forgot all about it, or that I’d let it pass without comment. Well, you’re wrong, dammit.

I’m talking about Socktoberfest, of course. This weekend it’s all about the socks. Well, okay, it’s also about the beer, and the buxom wenches, and the non-stop partying, but it’s mostly about the socks. To celebrate socks and Socktoberfest tomorrow, I plan to party like they’re on sale for $19.99.

It’s not that I’m a sock fetishist or anything. (Some people are, apparently.) In fact, mostly I don’t think about socks at all, unless one of mine gets a hole in it, or I need something to stuff into a partner’s mouth during Loud Sex. That’s why Socktoberfest is such a big deal to me: it’s the one weekend a year when I can pay homage to my little cotton friends and not feel too weird about it. And when I pay homage, believe me, homage will be paid and then some.

This year, to celebrate Socktoberfest, I considered going to a sock museum. There is quite a reputable one in Yokohama, Japan, called the Sock Museum. I just recently learned of another one located in Serbia. Oddly enough, it is also called the Sock Museum. It’s like having two Louvres, I suppose. Unfortunately, I had to rule both pilgrimages out because I can’t afford the airfare. For that matter, I can’t afford bus fare to the airport. Perhaps next year….

I think the United States needs a sock museum. We suffer enough from world opinion without the ignominy of having no sock museum. Maybe I can get a grant of some sort to start one. This would meet several needs at once – America can at last proudly hold its head up in the hosiery world, Saint Paul would get a much-needed tourism boost, and yours truly could skim a bunch of money off the grant. I’ll keep you posted.

The U.S. used to have a sock museum. It seems that Nero, New York, once called “Sock City,” had one, but they lost it in the ‘70’s (just like I did). I quote from You Can’t Go Wrong, Stories From Nero, New York & Other Tales:

“The 1970s renewal of Nero was fraught with poor ideas - an unpopular sock museum, a downtown hotel with a leaky roof and a parking garage prone to flooding.”

I guess the Nero museum must have housed a substandard collection of socks; that’s the only reason I can think of for it being unpopular. They should have hired the curator away from the museum in Japan. This would have caused Japan to lose face in the sock world, while at the same time giving the Nero museum the much-needed boost in expertise to establish its collection.

It’s no use crying over spilt milk, I suppose. (I can, however, cry in frustration over my word processor continually changing ‘spilt milk’ to ‘split milk’.) I guess I’ll just have to drown my shame in beer this weekend. At least I won’t be partying alone. It’s the biggest weekend of the year for my sock puppets, so it’ll be zany times at the Hulles household for sure. Woo hoo!

- Hulles