In the early 1970s, in the popular sitcom All in the Family, iconic grumpy old white guy Archie Bunker (played by Carroll O’Connor) gets into it with his son-in-law, Mike Stivic (more commonly “the Meathead,” per his father-in-law), played by the young Rob Reiner. Archie sees that the Meathead is putting a shoe on his one socked foot, before putting on his second sock. “What’re ya doin’?!,” Archie asks, incredulously. “In the whole world everyone puts on their socks, and then their shoes.” The Meathead offers, calmly enough, that he is choosing to do otherwise.
Archie, who is reflexively disinclined to let such an obvious offense against the natural world go unpunished, sits on the bed with the Meathead and reasons, “What if there’s a fire? And you gotta make a run for it, and you have on just one sock and one shoe?” To which the Meathead replies, “Yeah, well you’re gonna be out there in the snow in just two socks and your feet are gonna be freezing, whereas I can hop around on one foot and stay dry.”
I have heard others argue that one might wish to just pad around the house in socks and that thus justifies sock-sock-shoe-shoe.
Here is what I think. I think the “ya might have to run out of the house when it is on fire” scenario is rare enough that we needn’t consider it. Plus I am pretty sure that when I come to the task I have a crisp idea as to whether I am going to put on shoes, or am just simply donning socks to putter around the house, and so that, too, is a red herring. A few years ago I would’ve said, “OF COURSE the right answer is sock-sock-shoe-shoe. BUT NOW, at age 69, once I get that leg up there, within reach, you betcher ass it’s gonna be sock-shoe, and galumph, and then crane up the next foot, for the next sock-shoe.
My good friend Steve and I share a mantra from the Bonnie Raitt song, “Nick of time”: “Life gets mighty precious when there’s less of it to waste.” Well, time’s a-wastin’! Once I wrestle one foot up onto my other thigh, or perhaps onto a stool in front of me, let us take good, complete care of that appendage before dismissing it WAY back down to the ground.
I have another like-aged friend, Weaver, who shares with me a desire to be efficient, as we cram as much livin’ into our so-obviously-constrained number of months left. When shifting the clothes from the washer to the dryer, and you drop that sock on the floor, DO NOT pick it up immediately. It’s not an Oreo! Let it sit there, to be retrieved, via your one deep bend over, along with the wash cloth and the underwear you’re certain to also drop while making the switch-over. Are you fixin’ to travel from one room of the house to another? Look around. There is surely something that needs to be transported, and let us not waste a trip with no straightening up accomplished! Heck, my wife and I have even made up a new word: “choreplay.” It is like foreplay, but the thing that might arouse the other is the accomplishment of chores around the house. “Hey, I just cleaned out my closet and put all my shirts on the same color hanger, hung them all in the same direction, and ordered them by color.” “Oh baby oh baby.”
So, if you are young and lithe and think you have all the time in the world, enjoy your sock-sock-shoe-shoe experience. No one will pay any attention. But believe me when I say, there will come a time when you realize that once you get that foot up there, might as well take full care of it before dismissing it to the plight of gravity.
Now, let’s talk about the joy of pulling the bed covers up over your head, before slipping out from under them in the morning, so that they are all almost in place before you start to make the bed.
