Writing About Pink Socks

Here’s a writing exercise to try for 20 minutes:

Pink socks.
Blue convertible.

Go for it!

2 thoughts on “Writing About Pink Socks”

My attempt: 🙂
I’m an organizer. I plan everything, and I’m meticulous. Those are my trademarks. Never could anyone even remotely claim (since entering school, at least) that my desk was out of order, my homework not neat enough, or that I had ever forgotten so much as the mysterious carrots around a URL when writing an address. It’s not that I’m perfect (though I am often accused of that very thing) but instead that I am careful; I pay attention to detail. I pride myself in doing what I do, well, perfectly.

That’s why my encounter with the washing this morning heralded an omen. Today, nothing could go wrong. It was the biggest day of my life. I was competing in an all-city free throw contest, and the winner won a blue convertible. Now, for a seventeen-year-old male who currently is the proud owner of a bus pass, that’s a big deal.

I’ve been practicing for YEARS to perfect my technique, having developed a secret aiming strategy that is nearly foolproof. Last month, I won the tournament at school, and now, today, wearing proudly the Lancer’s Green & Gold, I would go up against the best of the best from all the schools in the area, and I was, not bragging – just stating the facts, pretty sure I would win.

But I opened the washing machine this morning to pull out my lucky socks and hang them to dry until evening, and, Huston, we have a problem. More like a catastrophe. A seventeen-year-old basketball player cannot wear pink socks, but it appears that my little sister threw her brand new, red Esprit shirt in the load once I’d started it, and now, baked on to my socks by the boiling water of the hot cycle, are the most feminine pinkish-red swirls.

“Alicia!” I growled.

“Yes, my dear brother?” chirped my clueless, blonde 15-year-old angel of destruction.

I held up my sock. “What does this look like?”

“Woah! Where did you get those? Do they have a girls’ style? ‘cuz I just bought the cutest pink & white paisley skirt with a flair at the knee, and a softer version of those would look just right with my pink Mary Janes. Can we go after school? I wanted to …”

I’d had it. I reached in to the washing machine, and with a swoop, cast the clothes out onto the floor to see if any type of common sense had not been taken over by being fifteen.

I stood there, glaring. Come on, Einstein, make the connection…

She hesitated. “Are you trying to tell me that I should hang up my own shirt to dry?”

I looked at the time – 3 minutes ‘til the bus for school. I looked at my sister and shrugged in helplessness.

“Tomorrow, because of you, I’ll be taking the bus to school”, I sighed, turned, and with my freshly hippiefied socks in hand, left to discover just how much the right socks really matter.

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