Socks & Sandals: Retribution

By Jones

Satan. Beelzebub. Steve. The Dark One has many names and many faces,
all of which are intended to deceive the common man. If ever it comes
to pass that you find yourself locked into a life or death battle with
this specter of evil, I can give you but one piece of advice: Step on
his foot, for he will surely be wearing stockings on sandaled feet. But
what could possibly possess The Devil (or anyone for that matter) to
wear socks with sandals? This is one of the many questions I hope to
answer in this thirty-six and ten part series Socks & Sandals: Transitive Beguilement and Substantiational Value Judgements!

By Jones

Whence the Sock?

The sock was invented in the early 1420’s by a young man by the
name of Johan Lickterer. One morning as he was traveling to his job as
a supervisor at the local hydroelectric power plant, he noted that his
feet had become chilly and had begun chafing inside his wooden shoes.
This vexed Johan greatly, so he decided to take action. He tore off his
pants, fashioned a crude sort of moccasin with them, and putting them
back on his feet continued on his way. However, as he went on, his poor
feet were poked and prodded through the light fabric by sharp rocks and
broken Wild Cherry Pepsi bottles. He thought of taking off his new
fabric boots and re-donning his old wooden shoes, but the thought of
all those splinters made him cringe.

Suddenly, out of nowhere a very old man vaulted from behind a nearby
rock formation. He was naked except for a pair of what seemed to be
white moccasins on his feet, and another which was strategically (and
thankfully) placed elsewhere. He laughed hideously, exposing a
row of crooked and broken teeth. He began to babble incoherently and
picking up a stone from the ground he shat on it healthily, and tossed
it into a passing carriage; eliciting horrified screams from within.
Johan turned to gaze at a passing Monarch butterfly which had alighted
on a beautiful rose, and when he turned back, both the old man and the
carriage had vanished, and he noticed a faint blue dust and a foul
stench on the wind.

To Hooters, good sir!

“Brilliant!” Johan cried, snapping his fingers,
“I’ve done it! I’ve solved the hermetic equation (It
is not known what was meant by this – ed.)! Now all I must do is to test it
in the field!”

So on his feet – over the makeshift pant shoes – he placed his wooden shoes as well. And so the sock was born.

Big Deal.

Big deal? I assure you that it is no small deal. It
is important that you know the history of a custom before you make
judgments on the present situation, is it not? (It is) In any case,
the true question is, how could any man, after reading all of that
lovely history, hope to besmirch the true purpose of a sock by wearing
one with a sandal?

A sandal is indubitably a summer shoe; I do not believe any sane and
well man will deny this, and if any do, may their gullet be
slit from ear to ear by a band of brigands! So why, might I ask,
against everything good and holy in this world, would any person wear a
sock with a sandal? It is the punt of a football to the groin of the
creator himself. A sandal is a shoe one wears because one enjoys the
freedom it provides. While wearing it, one may romp in thicket and
hedgerow and engage in the lovely things which boys are wont to do in
times of peace:

To feel the sweet caress of a breeze between your toes
To wriggle them with delight as the grass gently caresses their tips

These are the joys of sandals, or so I am told (I do not wear the beastly things myself).

But still there are those who would spit bile on the altar of these
joys, and turn their back to our lord and savior Jesse. These men are
known as the sock-wearers. They pull on the white and brown menaces
(some with stripes, some without) and then have the outright gall to
place a sandal on their foot as well.

Of Purposes

Do you not see that you are defeating the goodly purpose of a sandal!?
You are imprisoning your feet. Your feet, which have done so very much
for you; have provided you with the gift of self-locomotion and the
ability to kick at a ball made from a lamb’s stomach! Yes you
lock these unfortunate feet away, leaving them to rot there
-centimeters from freedom- in their sweaty stocking prison.

But wait, you may say, but you also do this to your feet when you wear
shoes! Ah, but of course you are correct! But with a shoe it is done to
ward off the greater evils of chaffage, blisters, and cold, which
I’m sure you will agree are far more torturous to feet than mere
imprisonment! Next, there are those who would claim that they wear
socks with their sandals for ‘extra protection’. This is
balderdash!

The only thing a sock provides protection from is the harsh chill
of a wintry day and only a madman would wear sandals on such a day.
You cannot hope that a tiny layer of fabric can possibly protect you from smashes, bumps, thumps, or crushing.
If one desires ‘extra protection’ as they might claim, one would need only to put on a pair of thick shoes!

I believe if this were a match of cricket, that it would be fair to say
that I had defeated these arguments by a fair number of wickets indeed!
“Score it!” as they say.

A delightful game of cricket at sewage treatment facility #3997.

Judgment

The only recourse left to me is to assume that those who are wearing
socks with sandals are doing so as some sort of sick twisted
‘fashion statement’. In my view, such persons are
shamefully anti-utilitarian. I will go on record as of this day to say
that I feel there is nothing more disgusting and ridiculous than to see
a grown man in sandals as well as stockings, especially of the latter
is pulled up taut against his misshapen calf. It is all I can do to
stifle the vomit even as I write this. I finish this article in a state
of queasy disgust; I can feel the bile rising sickly sweet and burning
in my throat. I know you must feel the same way.

I bid you good day.