Of presents, and socks

Knowing that I'm a huge fan of the two Godfather films, Kevin bought me the trilogy boxset on DVD, complete with stunning bonus materials and such (partly as a bribe in order to blackmail me into not whingeing unfairly about the course last week. What can I say, it worked. How easily I am bought...). Unfortunately, this is going to make it so much harder for me to deny that Part III exists - it's awful, awful, it completely ruined the perfect tragedy of Part II's end scene for me, and once I saw it I spent months trying to blank it from my mind. Doubly damning is the fact that I've spewed so much venom in Part III's name in front of Kevin that he's now curious, and intent on seeing it. And although it's on television next week when he could watch it without me, I'd feel compelled to ridicule him for watching it on Channel 5, poor quality and with adverts galore, when I have it on DVD. So I'm going to have to suffer the anguish - again! - and watch it with him...

And speaking of anguish, this brings me rather neatly around to the subject of Kevin's socks. (Forgive me for blogging about your socks, dear. But, well, I just had to.) There was a quote in last week's episode of Six Feet Under which gave a rather good overview of the issue at hand:

"I'm trying to pair up my socks."
"But they're all identical."
"That's the dilemma."

You see the problem. Kevin spends time in the mornings comparing lots of individual socks from the large sockpile in order to find a pair. The fact that all his socks are indistinguishable merely increases the difficulty of this task. Being a bright spark (and having a mother who, years ago, implemented a similar scheme for me), I suggested sorting them all out into pairs, all at once, and then sewing a small piece of coloured thread to the top of each sock with a distinct colour for each pair.

This idea was not welcomed joyously and jubilantly as I had hoped.

Kevin explained to me that his socks frequently go missing for periods of time and subsequently reappear, and they don't have the decency to do this in whole pairs. Thus there are times when the sockpile contains many individual socks, and not one pair between the lot of them. He is therefore sometimes compelled to take two different (indistinguishable) socks which don't make up a pair, and to convince himself that he has a whole pair, thus sparing him an anguish lasting all day long.

Were I to brutally commandeer his sockpile and sew in the coloured threads, he would no longer be able to labour under the pretence that he was wearing a pair of socks. He would instead have to suffer the indignity of mismatched socks, even though no one but him would know. (I think Kevin may be slightly geeky. Don't tell anyone though.)

So, now... to sew or not to sew? Sometime over Easter I may launch a sneak attack on the sockpile, armed with needle and threads. Be warned, Kevin's socks. I am coming for you.