I cancelled the sock subscription. It was about twelve dollars a month, roughly a hundred and forty-four dollars a year. The socks arrived in the mail, I wore them, and I never thought about socks at all. That is not a business I want to be in.
Donna asked what I planned to do with the money. I told her I had a plan. She asked if the plan was socks. I said the plan was infrastructure.
【Circular sock knitting machine】(https://www.amazon.com/s?k=circular+sock+knitting+machine&tag=ramseeker-20)
about fourteen hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.4.
This is the whole thing. A machine that makes socks, in the house, on demand. I will never buy a sock again for the rest of my life. The machine pays for itself in a number of years that I have worked out on paper and will share when the paper is less embarrassing.
about two thousand dollars. Shark rating 0.5.
You cannot make socks from nothing. You make them from fleece, and fleece comes from an animal that is standing in a field somewhere far from here. This solves the supply side. The barn is a separate conversation and I would like to have it calmly.
about nine hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.6.
Socks only. The towels are heavy and they beat the socks around in the drum like a bag of rocks. A dedicated machine ends the mixing, ends the sorting, and ends the argument about whether a towel load is a real load.
about eleven hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.7.
This is furniture. Furniture comes out of the furniture budget, which means it does not touch the sock money at all. It also smells the way a closet is supposed to smell, and it holds the socks at a temperature I find reassuring.
about two hundred and forty dollars. Shark rating 0.8.
The first pair off the machine does not go on a foot. The first pair goes on the wall. Every serious operation has a first dollar framed and this is the same idea, except that mine is a sock and it took me a weekend.
about three hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.9.
Socks come out of this clean and slightly warm after twenty minutes. Donna asked why the socks need a hospital. I said the socks do not need a hospital, the socks need a process, and this is the process.
about twenty-five dollars. Shark rating 1.0.
A craft that consumes the inventory is not a cost. It is a rotation. I make a monkey, I give the monkey to a child, the child remembers me fondly, and the drawer gets one pair lighter. Everybody wins except the sock.
about eighty-five dollars. Shark rating 1.1.
Wool dried flat keeps the shape it was made in. Wool dried hanging becomes a different object entirely, one that fits nobody and gets pushed to the back. This is not fussiness. This is the difference between a sock and a rag.
about sixty dollars. Shark rating 1.2.
A hole in the heel is not the end of a sock. It is a small job for a person with the right tool and an evening. The tool is a polished egg and I want the ebony one because I will be holding it for years.
about forty dollars. Shark rating 1.3.
The egg is for the patient man. The loom is for the man with a drawer full of holes and no patience left after the towels. It holds the weave tight and even, and even mending looks intentional.
about one hundred and forty dollars. Shark rating 1.4.
Twelve skeins. The machine does not run on intention. It runs on yarn, and the yarn has to be the thin kind with a bit of nylon in it or the heel goes through in a month.
about ninety dollars. Shark rating 1.5.
Yarn arrives as a loop. You cannot knit from a loop. You need a thing that spins the loop into a ball and a thing that holds the loop while it spins. Two devices, one problem, no way around it.
about fifty dollars. Shark rating 1.6.
I will know which ones are the hiking socks. Right now I know that in my heart, and my heart has been wrong before, in a situation involving a wedding and a pair of grey socks that were not the grey socks I thought they were.
about thirty dollars. Shark rating 1.7.
Wool takes on moisture and then smells like a basement. Two of these, one for the drawer and one for the armoire, so both locations can report to me like a small weather service I own.
about forty-five dollars. Shark rating 1.8.
The hygrometer tells me there is a problem. This fixes the problem. Buying only the one that tells me the problem is like buying a smoke alarm and calling the fire department to say you are all set.
about one hundred and eighty dollars. Shark rating 1.9.
Wall mounted, so it takes up no floor. Socks go on wet at night and come off dry in the morning. That is the entire offer and it is a very good offer.
about seventy-five dollars. Shark rating 2.0.
There is a correct size. It is a number. I have been guessing at that number for thirty years, in stores, under pressure, with a salesman watching. The device ends the guessing and it does not care how I feel.
about sixty dollars. Shark rating 2.1.
Wool creases where it folds. A steamer lifts the crease without a hot iron, and a hot iron is how a sock becomes felt, and felt is how a sock becomes a coaster.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 2.2.
Pills are not dirt. Pills are fibers that gave up. You take them off with this and the sock looks like it has another year in it, which it does, because it was never damaged in the first place.
about twenty-five dollars. Shark rating 2.3.
Uniform folds make uniform stacks. Uneven stacks collapse. A collapsed stack is how a man ends up wearing one black sock and one almost black sock to a thing where people are looking at his ankles.
about thirty dollars. Shark rating 2.4.
The drawer is a rectangle and the socks are a system. A system needs lanes. Without lanes everything is one pile and the pile is where socks go to be lost while still technically present.
about eighteen dollars. Shark rating 2.5.
It stops the socks from sliding when the drawer closes and it keeps the cedar oil off them. Both of those are problems I did not know I had until I had socks worth protecting.
about fifteen dollars. Shark rating 2.6.
Eight of them. One per load, plus spares, because a spare bag is cheaper than the mood I get into when a bag has gone missing. Loose socks in a drum is how a sock becomes a smaller sock.
about twelve dollars. Shark rating 2.7.
A hundred of them. The clips hold the pair together through the wash and the dryer, so the pairing is finished before the laundry starts instead of after it, at nine at night, on the floor, in the dark, with a basket.
about twenty-two dollars. Shark rating 2.8.
The socks go at the bottom of the suitcase and come out with the suitcase on them. A pouch is a small wall between the socks and the wheels, and I have come home with socks that had been near wheels.
about twenty-five dollars. Shark rating 2.9.
I do not bend as well as I used to. Also, the heel of the sock goes into the shoe instead of folding underneath it, and a sock that has been folded under a heel every morning for a year is a sock with a story I do not want to tell.
about sixty dollars. Shark rating 3.0.
The boots are not the problem. The boots are the source of the problem. Dry boots mean dry socks by extension, and I would rather solve a thing upstream where it is quiet than downstream where it is my foot.
about forty dollars. Shark rating 3.1.
A gallon. It does not strip the lanolin and it does not need rinsing, which removes one step from a process that already has more steps than Donna wants to hear about.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 3.3.
Something is eating the wool. I have not seen it. Not seeing it is not the same as it not being there, and I would like to register that distinction before the drawer gets worse.
about thirty dollars. Shark rating 3.4.
A rough heel is sandpaper. It goes through the inside of a sock faster than the floor goes through the outside. This is maintenance of the equipment, and the equipment is me.
about thirty-five dollars. Shark rating 3.5.
Long days on the feet and a mild squeeze on the way home. Donna approves of these, which makes me suspicious in a general sense, but I need them and I am keeping them.
about sixty dollars. Shark rating 3.8.
Three pair. Cushioned under the heel and the ball, and they stay where they are put inside a boot on a hill. I have paid more for worse experiences and I would do it again.
about ninety dollars. Shark rating 4.0.
Six pair, dark, and they stay up. A sock that slides down during a conversation makes the entire conversation about the sock, and the conversation was not about the sock.
about thirty dollars. Shark rating 4.2.
Ten pair, because they disappear. That is not carelessness. That is the design. You buy these knowing the count will fall and you plan for it the way you plan for weather.
about fifteen dollars a month. Shark rating 4.4.
This is not the old subscription. The old one sent socks I did not choose. This one sends socks I also did not choose, from a different company, which makes it discovery. Donna asked how that was different. I said this one has a better name.
about eighty dollars. Shark rating 4.6.
Eight pair, mid weight, for the cold months. Wool holds the temperature and does not keep the smell the way the others do. This is a plain purchase and I am not going to dress it up as anything else.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 4.9.
Twelve pair, white, the ordinary kind. They go with everything, they are cheap enough that losing one is not an event, and when a drawer has these in it the drawer is a drawer. Donna watched me put them away and asked what was wrong with the subscription. I said nothing was wrong with the subscription. I said this is different.