Everyone’s talking shite. I’m just breathing it in.

I found one sock this morning. Just one. Its mate has disappeared into the great cotton void — presumably abducted somewhere between spin cycle, laundry basket, and the black hole behind the radiator. You know the one: that terrifying little crevice between wall and radiator that hoovers up pens, coins, and apparently all notions of domestic order. I have stared into it. I have reached in with trembling fingers. I may never be the same again.

I begin my investigation in earnest. I check under the bed, behind sofas, inside the laundry basket that somehow breeds other socks overnight. I even interrogate the dog, who looks at me with the casual contempt of a CEO reviewing a failed Q4 strategy. Still, the sock eludes me. Somewhere in my house, it has convened a sock council, plotting revenge on humans for the tyranny of dryers. Perhaps it is attending a conference on “Optimising Pairings” and sending reports back to its kind.

I contemplate sending a memo. Perhaps a PowerPoint deck. “Sock Loss: Operational Impact on Morale and Laundry KPIs.” But I realize: even corporate ingenuity cannot solve this mystery. Socks are anarchists. Socks are quantum. Socks have no loyalty.

Eventually, I accept the absurdity. I hold the lone sock like a trophy, a symbol of chaos, the universe’s tiny, ridiculous joke. I imagine its mate drifting behind the radiator, dangling above the vacuum’s abyss, waving like a flag from a distant frontier. Somewhere between the fabric folds and the wall, it is winning.

And yet, I can’t stop thinking about work. Not in a stressful way. More like an existential parallel: projects vanish, deadlines disappear, clients ghost you, and sometimes you hold only half a plan in your hand while staring at the void. Life — domestic or professional — is mostly about managing uncertainty and embracing the absurd.

I place the lone sock back with the laundry, half-expecting it to vanish again before the next spin cycle. I imagine one day it will return, triumphant, or it won’t. Either way, I have learned something profound:

Some things are lost forever. Some things are socks. Some things — like patience, logic, and deadlines — are all three.

– Tom Kite.