Concrete Pencil: Sock it to me

Then there are those who can't, just can't, walk around a day at work, a Thursday, say, with Sunday written on their feet.

I am of the second group. I'm very grateful that my wife bought me these socks, and I am too lazy and mean to buy replacements. But what was she thinking?

She knows me. I have, I must confess, certain ways, which make me a bit funny. Not in a good way.

Surely she must have known I'd be like this about the socks. In fact, I can only assume that she bought them on purpose, knowing the crippling effect having the wrong ones on the wrong day would have on me.

There is a phrase growing in office usage that sees people describe themselves or others as OCD. As in, "ooh, you keep you desk very tidy, you're OCD!" Or, "I like to keep all those files alphabetically, in a cabinet: OCD or what!"

Now, I don't want to sound like Gary The Fun Nazi or anything, but don't you think we're being a little unfair to sufferers of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which by all accounts sounds like it really rather sucks.

The last thing OCD's tormented sufferers need is office tosspots using the illness as a shorthand way to reemphasise their mighty wackiness. Anyway, that's what some people say when I explain the sock thing.

They say "OCD or what?!" verbally inserting the awful double punctuation (?!) with which they no doubt litter the endless emails of 'gags' they tediously forward to their contacts book when they're not being mighty wacky.

Other people, when I explain the sock thing, know what I mean. I told one friend that I was making progress, that I could just about wear the wrong day's socks, if the day in question felt a bit like the sock day.

So if it was a Tuesday but the first day of my working week, I could wear, just about happily, Monday socks. And if I wanted to rebel against the Wednesdayness of a Wednesday, I could purposefully slip on some Fridays - although not, I am certain,
Saturdays.)

His reaction was: how could you? How could you ever wear the wrong
day?

Hence my assertion that there are two kinds of people in this world.

(They keep saying this in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, don't they? There are two kinds of people in the world. "Those that come in by the door, and those that come in by the window." People used to pump out quotes from that film at Laser Quest which I used to go to with that friend who also has trouble with day-specific socks.)

Anyway, anyway: our washing machine is broken and I'm wearing Sunday. I feel funny.