#809 New Socks Day

Neil Pasricha

Don't tell me this doesn't excite you

Alright, let’s break it down.

New Socks Day is great for four big reasons:

1. Treat for your feet. Face it, your feet got it bad. Big toes get stubbed, dry skin gets rubbed, and bunions grow on your baby toe. Squeeze those caked and cracked pita-bread heels into tight shoes all day and you’ll soon agree: Your feet deserve to be treated like royalty. On New Socks Day, feet aren’t just forgotten warriors clad in an unprotective armor of toe-knuckle hair, bulging veins, and dry skin. No, they rise into king and queens — lovingly cloaked in royal gowns, bathed softly in soft cotton, and tenderly hugged in fresh factory fabric.

Hard and crackly

2. The Slip n’ Slide. New socks grease your feet and let you move with reckless abandon across the hardwood floors of this great land.

3. High-Quality Toe Jam. What’s more gratifying that painstakingly picking out massive chunks of toe jam at the end of New Socks Day? When I do the deed, I pretend I’m a top-notch surgeon in baby-blue scrubs, leaning over a sliced-open stomach in the middle of a high-stakes surgery and then, in a dramatic moment, I just start lifting out these bloody pliers again and again, yanking out glass shard after glass shard, as everybody in the viewing gallery jumps to their feet and erupts in cheers. Could just be me, though.

Time to dig for toe jam

4. Clean Dream. Sure, today your socks may be bright white, but we both know they’ll never be this clean again. Tiny holes will grow, heels will brown or yellow, and the elastic will fray and rip away. One day you’ll hold a sock from the dryer up in front of your face and actually wonder if it’s clean or dirty. That’s when the Clean Dream is over and it’s time to go shopping and start again.

So next time you slowly peel on a fresh pair of socks, just smile because you know you’re in for a great New Socks Day.

AWESOME!

Toe Jam Heaven?

Photos from: here, here, here, and here

31 thoughts to “#809 New Socks Day”

  1. Wow, this looks like it took a lot of work. It’s my new favorite, but I say that about all of them. ;) Thanks! Keep up the AWESOME work.

  2. Just FYI bunions do not grow on baby toes, Those things are called corns. A bunion comes on the large inside “knuckle bone”

    I hope you plan to make this into a book when you are done.

  3. I love getting new socks. They always seem to fit perfectly in the very beginning. That’s very awesome. But over time, you break them in, they loosen, and you get sad and frustrated. *sigh* Socks are complicated and fickle things.

  5. This is probably the best one yet. So good in fact that I had to comment. I heart new socks.

  8. I hate when I get a hole in the big toe part of the sock. I found out long ago it is from not cutting your toenail. I always get new socks every Christmas. They wear out fast.

  9. Ha! The hardwood floors of this great land. I don’t know what in the world you do in life, but your writing is awesome. Glad I stumbled into this blog.

    And I second the idea of you making a book of these.

  10. I was gonna suggest this entry but I knew you’d eventually get to it.It IS awesome.

  13. New socks are awesome. Properly fitting new socks are like manna from heaven. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve bought new socks when they either fit into “looser than that girl who sat behind you in third period French” category (and I’m embarrassed all day when you can see my bare ankles peeking out under my suit pants, because my socks have bunched up around my shoes) or the “vice grip” category (and when I finally peel them off at the end of a long day, I have permanent sock lines dug into my calves, and I notice my feet are purple from lack of circulation.

    But when they fit just right… boy, bring it on, because I’m going to go out and buy 20 more pairs of those socks!

  14. your toe socks picture made me think of my friend’s husband. he wears toe socks–no lie–and he loves them! when I first noticed I thought he had on regular socks and his toes were really fat & swollen. I think they are made especially for running and he says they are awesome. you should give em a whirl and see if they are as great as new white socks :)

  16. New sock day is almost as good as Clean Sheet Day. The glorious day when there’s not an ounce of dog or cat hair on your bed.

  18. I go and buy new socks at the beginning of each semester. There is just something about tossing all the old ones at the end of finals and wearing new ones the first few weeks of class that just feels right.

  19. Okay, I’m OCD about new socks. My wife can’t figure it out. Every time I go to Walmart I like to buy new socks. There is something about new socks, each washing makes them less new. Yes feet have it bad, and it seems that new socks just make it better for them.

  20. Reading these makes me so happy. It really is stuff like this that makes life worth living.

  22. New Socks Day? Ohhh, you mean Christmas. This is actually the only time of year when I get new socks. Delicious!

  23. #3 just happened yesterday with my grandson after he was scarfing strawberries; yep, somehow one got between two toes, and there it was, the real McCoy…Strawberry TOE JAM…hmmm, yummy on a baby!
    (just yanking!)

    1. true story about the toe jam; eating it, no!
      Loving new socks, yes!

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