Common Goods: Sock It To Me.

A sock drawer very much like the one I witnessed in middle school.

When I was in middle school I went to my friend's house for the first time and within my first half hour there she proudly and secretly showed me her dad's sock drawer. Apparently it was legendary amongst the kids who had been lucky enough to glimpse it on a visit to her house. Oh, boy it was something. The wide drawer was filled with a rainbow of socks neatly paired, folded, and arranged in a gradated scale from light to dark. Being the burgeoning clothes-o-phile that I was, I was in total awe. There were pink socks and polk-a-dot socks and silver socks and striped socks. It was amazing. The father in question later came out of the sock drawer (or rather the closet) and embraced his love of cozy, colorful things and men. I've never forgotten that sock drawer. And, every time the season changes and socks again become necessities I think of that amazing drawer and just how telling it turned out to be. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that a rainbow sock drawer automatically means a rainbow lifestyle; not at all, it's just fascinating to peek into a stranger's sock drawer and see what they've got in there. Lo and behold, they have a Flickr pool for that:

A mess of stripes.



Ordered chaos.



Type A sock storage.



The drawer and the things above it. I bet you could write this person's biography just from this view alone.



Cartoon cats and toe socks.



Real cats love to snuggle up in the sock drawer.


I'd snuggle up here if I were a cat.

Find the original photos here. Got a great sock drawer? Send me a snap. I'll read it like your palm...