[This diary is posted on recommendation of a couple of people over on DK4 for the sole purpose of archiving the effort. It is pure snark start to finish, designed very specifically to pay homage to the patron saint of conspiracy theories, St. Conspiraca Herself. I trust that will be obvious enough to the few who dare to read the entire thing...]
It might surprise some people here (but not many) to learn that the recent world economic collapse has roots that go decades deep. And that the main taproot, the thickest and longest ground-anchor is textiles. Socks, to be specific.
To explain some phenomena in this world that nobody has a good handle on, it is necessary to appeal to collective, stochastic behavioral quirks better quantified by the 'art' of economic modeling than the science of biology or physics. Once you see the dots, it's not hard to connect them. And the story that web tells is horrifying. Unless people can be made to understand what's happening, we may be looking at extinction of the human species!
I will present personal experience as evidence supporting the astounding plot I have uncovered. I trust the reader to be an intelligent enough human being to be able to gage the truth for him or her self, as lights and alarms start going off in their heads - the "Aha!" that happens as proper connections are made and the veil of ignorance ripped away.
It starts, as such things start, at the beginning. For me, it was at the age of 12. It was a short story in one of those Sci-Fi pulp magazines* popular in the day. About an out of work guy who by circumstance found himself spending quite a lot of time doing mundane household chores. Like laundry.
[* As was so well illustrated in the book and movie, A Beautiful Mind, about the life of Nobel prize winning mathematician John Nash, back in those days secret messages were often passed in code or hidden in plain sight in various periodicals.]
Anyway, it was a very creepy story about seemingly mundane, everyday mysteries that awakened my young mind to the true depth of weirdness in this world. It explained so much, so flawlessly, that I realized even small things could, if you think about it hard enough, add up to monstrous SuperConspiracies that can threaten our very existence. The one-line plot summary is that this guy discovers over a period of time and investigation, that safety pins are actually the larval form of wire coat hangers. It ends with his death - strangulation by wire coat hanger - before he can alert the world.
Think about it for a second. There are three dots here, and they are intimately connected. Safety pins - have you ever gone looking for a safety pin when you needed one, and actually found one that wasn't already attached to a torn shoulder seam in the closet? Even though you've seen dozens of them here and there over the years before you actually needed one? And be honest - how many packs of safety pins have you bought through the years because you can never find one when you need it? I know that for me, it's at least one a year!
Wire coat hangers. Do you know or have you ever met anybody anywhere who ever actually went out and bought wire coat hangers? Really? Where do they even sell those things? I've seen sturdy wooden hangers, fat plastic hangers, pouffy quilted hangers, special stackable super hangers, inflatable hangers, fancy panty hangers and slacks-grip hangers with real boar bristle soft-clamps. At Sears, Macy's, Neiman-Marcus and WalMart. And everything in between. The only place you can find dozens - nay, hundreds - of plain old wire coat hangers is at the dry cleaner's or in your (and everybody else's) closets. You've thrown them away, gave them away, donated them to the church yard sale, given them by the bundle to your children when they left for college, made marshmallow and wiener skewers by the dozen, tied your hoses together with 'em, pulled gunk out of your drains with 'em, probably made more than one grade school art or science project out of 'em. There are always more. Where the hell (and I do not use that term lightly) do they come from?
…Aha! See the obvious connection? And that's just some sort of industrially originated metal life form. No real threat to the future of the human race. But once you can start connecting dots like that, other mundane mysteries of life start to make a lot more sense too, and some of the sense they make are downright sinister. Like socks, for instance.
Everybody needs socks. Everybody goes through socks much faster than they go through underwear. There's always a hole in the toe or heel, they get too grungy to wear in public, the elastic on the crew socks fails and they don't make fashionable anklets, etc., etc. Nobody who's anybody darns socks these days as if they were some sort of precious article of proper clothing. They're cheap. Buy 'em by the 10-pak, black or white, all alike, which saves frustration from that "other" problem with socks… The fact that you've always got an odd number of them, and you always need more. Where do they go?
I live in southern Appalachia. A region that makes up in beauty what it notoriously lacks in jobs. They label us "economically depressed" even when the rest of the nation and world are doing just fine. There are only a few industries here. Traditionally, the best factory jobs have been in furniture making and textiles. Most of those jobs went to China decades ago, the factories abandoned and now in ruins. But there are a few survivors. In my town there's an Ethan Allen plant, a yarn factory and a sock factory. The yarn and sock factories have attached outlet sections where you can buy off-dye lots, seconds and such for cheap.
It took me a couple of years to figure out what was going on, and yes it did start with the disappearing sock mystery. I'd go to the sock outlet twice a year and buy a plastic sack full of your basic nondescript white one size fits all (adults) crew socks. The all-alike either-foot type. Over the months the socks would get worn, get washed and dried, and go from the dryer to the sock basket. Which is the laundry basket next to the dryer where socks go - they're all alike, either foot will do, saves time pairing and putting into drawers somewhere. Just grab a couple in the morning and you're good to go. It was hard to miss the fact that the sock basket held steadily fewer and fewer socks as time went on. I've never found a cache of stowed socks anywhere in the house, shed, attic or basement, or in anybody's room. They just sort of fade away. To the point that six months down the line it would be time for another trip to the sock factory.
I thought it was just one of those mysteries of the universe until about a year ago, when on a whim I decided to buy a bag full of black crew socks in addition to the usual white ones. The boys liked them fine, wore them regularly. One day I was out of bleach, so threw a mixed load into the washer. It only uses cold water and the clothes were well-worn, so I wasn't worried about colors running or anything. Mostly socks and underwear, a few towels. When the load was dry I went to empty the lint trap screen, and it hit me… the lint was a sort of purplish shade of medium grey - the same shade, but mixed with lighter fibers, as those not-really black* socks!
[* There is no such thing as a really black fabric dye. Black is mixed of other deep colors in 'dye lots', which is why you can never buy a new pair of black socks that are truly interchangeable with your other black socks.]
It struck me like a ton of bricks, as if it had been staring me right in the face for years, but I'd just never really seen it before. The clues fell into place and the dots connected themselves:
One of every pair of socks is in fact a cleverly disguised piece of lint.
No, you can't tell just by looking. The fake sock looks and feels just like its partner, and is sturdy enough to last through a few wash cycles. But steadily, incrementally, insidiously, the sock "fades away" right into the vent trap screen of your dryer. Thereby forcing you to double what would be your 'normal' consumption of socks. Which, unlike mine, are usually made in China by slave women chained to giant looms who subsist on bread and water and work 80 hours a week with never a day off.
The women in my sock factory make nearly 8 bucks an hour. I couldn't afford to buy them retail, but I've got the outlet. And the factory attached, right next door. Last time I bought socks I questioned the sales lady closely, and asked very nicely if there was any way I could get a tour of the factory, or watch the process in action. Figuring that this was probably a most unique opportunity to uncover the truth and blow the whistle. But she hemmed and hawed, wouldn't look me in the eye, and made lame excuses about how people off the street can't just walk into the factory and talk to people. Very, very suspicious.
Now, you might be thinking that it's silly to "blow the whistle" on sock manufacturers who have just figured out a clever way to stay in business. How important could that possibly be in a world as nutty as ours? There are bigger things to worry about…
Are there? Really? Think about it. Have you SEEN the latest figures on the current trade deficit with China? Have you been paying ANY attention to the economic and political news? Ever heard the word, "Austerity?" Don't look now, they're coming for Social Security and Medicare next. Why?
…Because we owe our souls to the Company Store, and that store is in China, my friends. When they cash it in, America goes down. D-O-W-N. And the Chinese? They'll take to wearing socks made cheap for them in some godforsaken third world nation nobody ever heard of, where one of every pair will be a cleverly disguised piece of lint. And so on and so forth. The nations will fall, one by one, into chaos, civil war, starvation, disease, and ultimately, extinction. All for want of a real pair of socks.
Pleasant dreams!