Left with One of a Pair

Last updated on April 12, 2020

Does this ever happen to you? You open up the cupboard and find a jar or a container to store a dressing or save some leftovers. Then you search in all your cupboards but cannot find the matching cover. Okay fine, there’s another container that you can try. But that container also has no pair. Where did the covers go? How could they possibly have disappeared?

This doesn’t only happen with containers and jars; it happens with socks too. I put a pair of socks on. I take both of them off at the same time. I (think I) wash them as a pair, and yet, often when I fold a load of laundry, there are individual socks. Does the washing machine or dryer consume socks as payment for its service?

Sometimes, when you lose one of a pair of socks, you can form a new pair quite easily. This works with socks, containers, jars because I have several that are similar. This is more difficult with some things, one of which is shoes.

A Pair of Shoes

With shoes, one side invariably deteriorates faster than the other. When that happens it doesn’t help to keep one side. I can tell you from experience that it’s very uncomfortable walking with two different shoes, even if they are flats. (Blame jetlag.) Even the tiniest heel makes a difference.

Am I the only one who keeps one half of a pair even when the matching half is long gone? Just yesterday, we broke a glass container. I thought about throwing out the lid but I haven’t done that yet.

On that note, I’m off to clean out my storage containers and jars with no lids, lids with no jars, the pair of sneakers where one side is broken, the single sock that matches none of my other socks. Do you have any of those lost pairs in your home? If so, consider letting them go :).

During April, I’m participating in the writing prompts challenge from WordPress.com. Want to participate? Find the prompts here.