Gone Missing

How odd.  The laundry is all clean again, but there are five socks without  partners.  The hampers are empty, the floor is picked up.  He and I wore two socks apiece, each day, one pair at a time every day, but now there are three white socks and two dark ones that don't match anything else.

It makes me think other things could be going missing that I may not be noticing.  And Halloween is coming, you know.

I started thinking of this about 15 minutes ago when I was folding the laundry and putting things away.  As I thought about it, a sudden wind sprang up outside and all the windchimes started thrashing around and, well, chiming.  Pretty spooky.  I guess, though, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's about a 2 or so.  But, could it mean something?

The unexpected things that happen without warning seem a little creepy this time of year, a mood prompted by neighbors who have strung fake spider webs in massive quantities in their yards and by all the pumpkins showing up everywhere.  I mean, where do those darned pumpkins come from anyway?

Weird things happen, like lightbulbs that pop suddenly right overhead, a bottle that falls off a shelf in the bathroom, a pile of magazines that gives way and slides to the floor.  No warning, just goes.  Makes you want to, you know, DO something.

I'm not a person given to wild screaming and panic.  No, I'm the opposite.  Dead calm, like the albatross around the Ancient Mariner's neck.  Or something.  If I get a little on edge, you can imagine that truly nervous people would be vaulting into total bug-eyed hysteria.  My approach is:  Admire their energy, which is really something to see, and then settle down with a good book.

A few missing socks do not seem like cause for panic, and yet it does give one a sense of unease.  It is perplexing, you know, to have an ever-increasing supply of singletons no matter how careful you are about your laundry routine.  I'm going to chalk it up to a little spirit, a trickster having some fun.  I'll leave the screaming and panic for times when I might need them.  Like if suddenly the socks' partners appear.