Socks.

I used to have a few pairs of those bootie socks with pom-poms on the back, right where your heel goes. It was in Junior High, and quite fashionable, I believe. Of course, this was right during the height of LA Gear High-top popularity, and it was such a bad mix.

I remember hitting gym, and I either stuffed the pom-poms into the high-top, thus causing a painful lump right over my Achilles tendon, or I would simply and sadly yank the pom-pom off. This caused another major problem...When I would run, the stupid bootie sock, stripped of apparently the only elastic woven into it (when the pom-pom was severed) would gradually slide down into the shoe, and end up being balled up towards my toe. It still makes me frustrated just thinking about it. I called them creepers.

Sometimes I didn't even have clean socks to wear. Growing up in a family of five girls, anything left unattended was fair game. Bra's, shirts, chocolate, and yes, socks.

And we wore the socks, until literally I think they disintegrated into a puff of lint. What I hated more than the creepers were the quitters. The socks that lost the elastic up top, and when you walked, would creep down your leg, and hang out the bottoms of your pegged jeans. Pull them up...Down they slide. Pull, slide, pull, slide. All day long. Some genious that had a drawer full of quitters, started the "roll two nested pairs of socks down to the top of your LA Gears", just make sure they exactly match your off the shoulder Flashdance sweatshirt.

This was the beginning of my sock obsession.

When I got my first job, I started buying Hanes Crew length white in those bulk packages. No sliding down. Enough elastic everywhere to gently cup your foot. I was in heaven. And I hid them, from my sisters.

There is nothing like a new pair of socks, right out of the package. No stains, or stretchy bulges. Thick cottony goodness. No quitters or creepers.

I still wear Hanes Crew length. When they start to show signs of quitting, I retire them. I know they aren't in style. Everyone else is wearing No-Show booties again.

HA! I scoff at you.