*The Annual Tradition: New Sock Weekend

*New Sock Weekend (also known as "NSW") is an annual tradition here at the Laboratory.

It begins, calmly enough, by an enthusiastic, if offhanded proclamation: "It feels like a New Sock Weekend." And this is followed by weeks of unalloyed happiness and joy resulting from the wearing of fresh socks.

Two requirements must be met for New Sock Weekend (NSW) to occur:

1. It has to happen at the start of an expedition.
2. It has to happen when the current crop of socks display a notable lack of vigor.

NSW is a wonderful time of year, looked forward to with great excitement by all Laboratory employees. It is an occasion of bipedal bliss, a hosen jubilee.

It is a transcendent feeling to plunge one's little piggies into fresh socks, to feel warmly swaddled in blended cotton, to savor that "new sock smell."

And so, this year, just as with those years previous, the proclamation was issued and new socks were procured after the completion of a careful study of the various available brands.That said, it is important to purchase the same brand annually, as it is necessary to keep order in the sock realm. One should never, ever deviate from purchasing the exact same brand of socks every year, year in, year out.

The guiding principle behind the Laboratory's sock collection is complete uniformity, so that the component parts need never be sorted.  Thus, we buy the same socks every year.

This year, NSW was a disaster.

The socks acquired were not the proper ones. Apparently, in the excitement connected with the buying of new socks, the Laboratory Purchaser failed to select the correct brand.

Yes, the socks were fresh and new, but, /quelle horreur/, they did not fit into the Laboratory's sock collection matrix.

Instead of bringing us weeks of happiness and joy, the dreadful interlopers brought misery and angst with their peculiar, impure colors and their diminutive, ungraceful shapes. It was a crushing disappointment, a burden simply not to be borne.

The only benefit these pathetic socks provide is the assurance that the proclamation of the next "New Sock Weekend" will soon follow in their train.