Autumn of socks
Oct. 14th, 2016 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnBought a pile of Tesco socks, despite my objection to Tesco on their strategy of absurd drama-mongering press releases, like the Marmite thing. Honestly, Tesco always run that kind of story and people always fall for it and share the latest story that is 100% calculated to catch the eye by being zeitgesty and a bit controversial, support the Tesco brand narrative that they are the champions of cheapness and then softly and silently vanish away afterwards like a boojum. All Tesco news stories are boojums, except for the odd one that they'd prefer you not to know about, involving accounting scandals.
Anyway, I went to the women's sock section, and it was full of small, elegant and often rather frilly or decorated socks. None of them looked warm. You could buy plain black ones, but they were thin and clearly designed for wearing with Smart Womanly Shoes, not stomping through mud in boots.
So I went to the mens section again and stocked up on thick, warm socks in attractive shades of blue, purple and green, for noticeably less than it would have cost me to buy thin chilly Woman Socks. Fortunately I am blessed with relatively large feet.
FEET HAVE NO GENITALS, TESCO. I really don't understand why all socks are not presented in one row, going from Very Small to Very Big. I don't object to the existence of thin socks with sparkly kittens on, but I reckon that at least 80% of dogwalkers I meet are female, and there was not a single sock in the 'women's section' that was well-adapted to that sort of life.
ETA: yeah, yeah, I know. Don't give them money and then go away and moan about them on the internet : take the money elsewhere to someone who does it right. But I'm SO lazy and also I have this internet right here to whinge into!
Anyway, I went to the women's sock section, and it was full of small, elegant and often rather frilly or decorated socks. None of them looked warm. You could buy plain black ones, but they were thin and clearly designed for wearing with Smart Womanly Shoes, not stomping through mud in boots.
So I went to the mens section again and stocked up on thick, warm socks in attractive shades of blue, purple and green, for noticeably less than it would have cost me to buy thin chilly Woman Socks. Fortunately I am blessed with relatively large feet.
FEET HAVE NO GENITALS, TESCO. I really don't understand why all socks are not presented in one row, going from Very Small to Very Big. I don't object to the existence of thin socks with sparkly kittens on, but I reckon that at least 80% of dogwalkers I meet are female, and there was not a single sock in the 'women's section' that was well-adapted to that sort of life.
ETA: yeah, yeah, I know. Don't give them money and then go away and moan about them on the internet : take the money elsewhere to someone who does it right. But I'm SO lazy and also I have this internet right here to whinge into!
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Date: 2016-10-14 09:12 am (UTC)Votes forPractical Clothing for Women!no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 08:00 pm (UTC)Not yet. Give it time. I'm reminded of Bic introducing special Biros for Women - the reviews on Amazon were highly entertaining...
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Date: 2016-10-14 09:21 am (UTC)My feet (as all the rest of me) are small, so sometimes I have a problem to buy plain, one-coloured socks.
A friend of my friend (f2m) once got arrested for the fight with a seller, who refused to sell him men's socks (he didn't look quite manly back then).
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Date: 2016-10-14 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-17 09:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-15 05:02 am (UTC)My annoyance is that the brand of socks I wore and loved for about a decade suddenly changed about 5 years ago now. They were the only socks that fitted my feet correctly. The biggest child size is too small, and the standard women's size is too big, unless I go to non-cotton socks, but I can't stand having sweaty feet so non-cotton socks are not an option (well, unless they are something like bamboo - still breathable and wicking and all). These were pretty stretchy (for cotton socks anyhow), so they would fit me without stretching and average footed women when stretched. But they went to a bigger, less stretchy sock, and I didn't know they were changing over until a while after (because I am not hard on my socks, so absent my fiance losing them while doing the wash, I rarely need new socks more than every 3-4 years), so I couldn't even find any of the old socks online.
Sadly, the only socks I've found that are comfortable enough nowadays are painfully expensive - I don't want to pay $12/3 pairs for the low cut socks and $20/3 pairs for ankle socks. It's terribly unreasonable, but they're the only thing that fits. And my fiance has lost most of my good socks (including almost all of my first pack of the expensive socks), so I currently have about 6 pairs of socks I can wear, two of which are brightly colored and thus hard to match with clothing. I think once we buy a washer and dryer (planned for during the stupid sales next month), so that we're not using a laundromat, I'll buy more of the expensive ones. Until then, it's just asking for my fiance to miss them at the bottom of the washer or against the front side of the dryer.
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Date: 2016-10-17 09:43 am (UTC)So, american socks love to play hide-an-seek with their owner too? Really, no other item get lost in laundromat so often than socks. Even handkerchiefs don't behave this way! If you put 3 pair of socks in a landromat (which means 6) you'll end up with 5 after the wash is over. Well, usualy. In rare case it could be 7. And how they love to crawl into duvet cover! My friend supposed once that they have they own socket universe, where they depart sometimes. But some of them return at unexpected moment! Only sometimes they miss a little bit their landromat-portal, because once in a while here comes a sock (usually only one) which is too big for me and too small for my father :)
PS: Bamboo socks stretch? Thanks for the tip, may come in handy!
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Date: 2016-10-18 07:23 am (UTC)I bought my last set a few years ago, so I can't guarantee they are still awesome, but these are the socks I really really love: https://www.foottraffic.com/product/Bamboo_Socks/No-Show_Multi_Pack_Socks
I like them even better than the K-Mart cotton socks I used to love that they no longer make. They are SO comfy, and they seem to wear pretty well, though my fiance has at this point lost all but one of those socks, so I cannot wear them until I buy more, which I just won't do until we buy a washer & dryer next month.
My fiance has lost 10 times more socks than I have worn out, no exaggeration, in the 7 1/2 years we've lived together. It drives me up the wall. I hate not having socks, but then I also hate buying them because I know he's just going to lose them. He has also lost about 1/2 of my fabric menstrual pads via the washer and dryer. He's in general a fantastic guy - super sweet, great temperment, takes good care of me (I'm disabled and can't contribute much around the house, and I need help with my service dog), but I swear, the man is the least observant adult I've ever met. And so my socks and pads and occasionally even underwear wander off. The worst one was when he forgot about my $250 sheets at the laundromat. Of course they were gone when he went back the next day. I was furious. They were the nicest bedding I'd ever bought myself, and I adored them, and I haven't been able to find anything of equal quality since. They were ultra-smooth and crisp and delightful.
But back to the socks. The two main advantages of bamboo over cotton are that it naturally discourages bacterial growth and it wicks way better than cotton, keeping your feet drier. This has the knock-on effect of less foot odor, to boot.
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Date: 2016-10-14 09:21 am (UTC)Tesco - home of healthy eating (Haha). We've got a Brownie trip there coming up - I hesitated about arranging it, but decided it was a free trip and we might as well get something out of the giant local store, since it's not likely to increase its sales when it already dominates the area.
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Date: 2016-10-14 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 10:31 am (UTC)As I get older I am more and more likely to shop in the men's section. I am less tolerant of having my money wasted.
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Date: 2016-10-15 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-15 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-15 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-15 07:59 am (UTC)But they only went down to size six.
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Date: 2016-10-17 08:40 pm (UTC)I agree these labels are confusing which is why I ignored them.
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Date: 2016-10-14 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-15 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 10:14 pm (UTC)When I had to buy Emergency Socks on my recent UK trip the only size I could find that'd fit me was "Boys: 7-10" so I ended up with Iron Man on my feet.
All this to say, buying socks can be a surprising hassle. It's socks! It shouldn't be that hard! And yet.
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Date: 2016-10-15 08:07 am (UTC)I hope the socks had superpowers...
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Date: 2016-10-16 09:21 pm (UTC)Sadly not.
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Date: 2016-10-14 11:04 pm (UTC)What do other women like me do - do they buy men's wellies, and men's socks, and pack the space in the socks and the wellies with extra pairs of men's socks? (Maybe that's what those thin pairs of women's socks are for, now I think of it!)
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Date: 2016-10-15 08:15 am (UTC)Have you tried a riding/ agricultural shop? Wellies for horsy/smallholding types seem to be more generous in this department and often have adjustable bits on the calves.
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Date: 2016-10-16 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-16 04:58 pm (UTC)