Mount Argyle

Tea: Jasmine Vanilla

Music: Beaver Nelson, "Minute Man"

Time: Night.

I don't always wear matched socks. Sometimes, I deliberately choose not to match. I do like to have the option, though.

And for several weeks ... okay, months ... my choices have been shrinking for no apparent reason. I put socks in the laundry. Sometimes I do the laundry -- and it still happens. My dryer is like the Thunderdome: Two socks enter, one sock leaves.

Today, I'd had enough. I rounded up every bag of unmatched socks I could find. (There were, for the record, five. There are five people in the house, but the unmatched socks were not divided by member. That would have been way too efficient.)

It started while the kids were at school and Mrs. Steep was at work. I made a pile in the living room and started pairing. As the others arrived home, they joined in.

I didn't count how many pairs we managed to get together. All I know is that I still have dozens of unmatched socks in what's now "my" sock bag.

Maybe I'm not meant to get them all paired off. Maybe my sock pile is some sort of cosmic trigger, a textile version of the monks' quest in Arthur C. Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God."

Then again, maybe the whole sock thing was just a cheesy way to set up giving you two stories tonight. No ghosties or monsters in the Clarke, I know. But the story is its own (albeit peaceful) brand of spooky, wouldn't you say?

You didn't read it? Go back and finish it. Right now. Or no literary dessert for you.

All done? Good job. Now you can move on to A.M. Burrage and "The Green Bungalow."