HERB BENHAM: The long and short of black dress socks
| Thursday, Sep 02 2010 04:35 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Sep 02 2010 04:35 PM
Recently I pulled out a pair of black dress socks from the chest of drawers. It's hard to get in trouble with black dress socks. They say, "I mean business and I might go to work to prove it."
I have two kinds of dress socks, excluding the brown ones, which don't count because they are brown and are exclusively Friday wear. Brown socks don't inspire the same respect black ones do. Brown says, "I can't keep a secret and if you press me hard enough, I'll tell you everything I know."
Black says, "Don't mess with me. I could have a temper and I have been known to lose it."
I have two kinds of black dress socks -- long and short. The long dress sock is more traditional. It's almost a knee sock. If you were English and trying to lose as many fashion points as possible, you might wear them with Bermuda shorts. The tops of the socks almost reach the bottom of the Bermuda shorts. The long black socks are almost like a pair of tights for the girl who stood next to you in glee club.
The short dress socks are more like calf wraps. When the elastic relaxes, they slip down and become ankle grabbers.
A friend's wife talked me into the long socks. She used the words "classic,"' "better support," and she might even have thrown in the word "elegant."
She shamed me into getting the long socks because she has better taste than I do and her husband is always impeccably dressed. Ever since the original conversation, I have included them in my sock purchases, not because I like them but because I hear her voice coming from every sock.
I dread putting on the long sock. A long sock is, in most cases, a tight sock. It requires perfect leverage to pull on, especially if you have a little pooch. It is not unlike the way some women describe putting on a tight pair of jeans. The best way, I've heard, is to lie on your bed, kick your feet out, refrain from breathing and pull the jeans on horizontally.
Long socks are similarly difficult. They're like putting on a full wet suit or a pair of ill-fitting ski boots. Sitting is necessary, but not every chair works. If you try putting on a long pair of socks while sitting on a low-slung sofa, you court failure. Your knees cannot be chest high or higher.
A folding chair or a dining room chair works best, a piece of furniture that allows full arm extension. Pretend as if you are standing and doing some clean-and-jerks with 125-pound barbells, which is about the amount of upward pressure that is necessary to pull on the long sock.
Try not to hold your breath while you're doing it; otherwise your calf will swell up to the size of a buffalo and you have a chance of hemorrhaging both eyes.
Even with the right chair, the proper breathing technique and a smooth, willing leg, long socks are the best thing to happen to chiropractors since car batteries and 50-pound bags of dog food.
Which brings up the question:
Why do we buy long socks? What do I want with the extra three or four inches at the top anyway? Those three or four inches are the gateway to the tunnel of pain. The top of a long sock is a tourniquet around the lower knee. If it were necessary to saw off the lower leg, you could skip pre-op.
I'm not looking for a calf warmer. When's the last time you said, "My calves are cold. Let me put on a tight pair of long socks."
I don't want that extra three or four inches and I don't want to pay for it. More than anything else, I don't want to pull it on, have all the veins bulge in my neck and risk going blind.
Long socks are a health hazard. Either that or the sun is setting on the British Empire.
