Creepy Socks and Other Slipping Things

Occasionally I find myself in a pair of knee highs, trouser, or boot socks that creep and slip. It never happens at home. Only when I’m entering an office, a store, or take a long walk through a field does the elastic go Poof! Why? Why? Why?

I dip low to pull them up from where they’ve sunk to my shoes, readjust every six steps, and have to wonder if little urchins are running alongside me playing with my socks, giggling as I tug on the nylon, rolling post-humorously on the grass, holding their hurting stomach muscles to watch me scoot to a corner drug store in short strides, knees holding up thigh-highs. It’s not the kind of thing you need to mention at work, “Oh, dang-it! My stockings won’t stay put.” 

Which makes me think about my friend who walked alongside her visiting mother, years and years ago, in front of Sanger-Harris, then a huge department store in downtown Dallas. They were just killing time before they would meet her dad’s plane at DFW airport–a time when people met passengers at the actual-factual terminals.

The hot Texas summer was a beast that day. A nice fountain sprayed a refreshing mist into the air on that particular corner. The lunch hour brought multitudes of businessmen and women hustling through the streets, dressed to the suit, walking two and three abreast, so Mary Anne and her mom strolled closer to the revitalizing, authentic Texas cement pond.There was no edge or dividing wall that dammed the water inside a hold…no ring or guard or housing for the lapping, cool water. Just a smooth indenture in the ground which licked the hot cement with water. 

There was no warning that the lovely green water was lush with algae growth. She never meant to swim in the Sanger-Harris fountain in downtown Dallas on that July day, but when the tip of her toe met a sweep of water, her mother went down with one knee planted firmly in the pond. Her hair was nicely fixed, she’d just had it coiffed in anticipation of her husband’s arrival from Michigan. The surprise of it all made Mary Anne chuckle as she grabbed for her mother’s hand, careful to keep her feet lodged on dry land.

Mother had worn her nicest polyester slacks to comb Dallas, but as she struggled to regain a foothold her other foot slipped, and she slid in those slick slacks backwards on four limbs into knee-high water. Crawling toward the bank, she lost her balance, thrashed once, twice, three times, and rolled onto her back. 

Mary Anne could not stifle her laughter, and wrenched her guts while her mother flared in the algae, muddying up their corner of the pond, the street. Dear, she was helpless to get her out.

People stopped to watch. 

With no strength left to pull her forward, Mary Anne’s mother tossed her purse upward, toward the embankment, hoping against hope that Mary Anne would grab hold so she could pull her in like a fish. Although it dredged the bottom, it created enough lift so that Mary Anne could catch hold of her mother’s soaking, algae-smeared, now-transparent shirt. Her hair, mottled with particles of the undersea, hung flat on top her ears. She crab-crawled through the water, but on the slick algae she slipped deeper again, like a rip tide pulling a body out to sea.

Mary Anne couldn’t help it–with the energy of a marshmallow, she doubled over in hysterics. Her mother broke nails clawing her way forward, and Mary Anne finally managed to hook one knee when her mother flipped over and a slender leg came bounding through the air.

I don’t remember where I was that day, probably tucked away in my downtown office, my trouser socks sliding slouthfully with each step, all the way down to my feet. 

Mary Anne and her mom made it to the parking lot, to the car, to DFW airport  to greet the man who simply raised his eyebrows when they met him at the terminal.

I think it was a full moon that day, creating low tide, and slippery, sliding things.