I know something you don't know...

Everyone should get one free quirk in life. One mulligan, that says they get to do some crazy, lame, unconventional thing consistently without apology, shame or ridicule. I believe this, and embody it.

A while back I started purposely wearing dark socks that don’t quite match. Nothing extreme or attention grabbing. Just a subtle difference in style, toe design or shade. For instance, one day I’ll wear one black sock with a finely knit gold heel, while the other only has a gold line across the toes. The next day I’ll put on one black sock and one very dark, slightly blue, sock with different elastic ribbing.

My reason for doing this is simple. Aside from the fact that one of the voices in my head told me to, I feel like it gives me a mental edge. As if I’m pulling one on everyone around me. Like I’m really ‘sticking it to the world’ and its pressures to conform with social restrictions. It’s funny, because when I interact with someone, while sporting my collage of sock styles, I feel as if I’ve got an unseen advantage over them. Like when you feel that you know a secret that they don’t, so you get a Jerry Seinfeld like smirk while you converse. Sometimes they ask me what’s so funny, as they self-consciously wipe an imagined speck off their nose or mouth. I assure them that nothing is wrong, really. I’m just remembering something from a funny British skit involving an armadillo with a wicker basket, that they probably wouldn’t appreciate, and to continue telling me about their aunt’s bad case of rheumatism. See what I mean, I own that conversation. I’m in total, albeit slightly off-balanced, control.

Well, that’s how it started, as an innocent eccentricity. Then I found myself asking Annie to start purposely folding mismatched socks together while doing the laundry. I’m essentially institutionalizing my dementia, and that can’t be healthy! I went running the other day and actually wore my socks inside out, and condescendingly whispered to myself as I passed anyone, “I know something you don’t know…” My condition is now spreading to my whites- taking on whole new mutations, ghoulishly infesting other areas of my wardrobe- today my whites- tomorrow disseminating through all articles of clothing like a legion of mindless zombies. Somehow that analogy, dimly characterized in the previous colossal run-on sentence, perfectly illustrates my fear.

Then, resolve returns as I remember the obvious; if I don’t wear unmatching socks, and do so with patriotic gusto…the terrorists win. That's exactly what they would want me to do.