When hubby came home from Basic Training he followed the advice of one of the people in his training barracks, "Tie a sock around your duffel's handle so that you know which one is yours at the airport."
Hubby thought that was brilliant advice, and used one of his sport socks. Upon pick-up at the airport, he gleefully reported his new "trick" and waited impatiently to demonstrate how much easier such an action made finding your luggage at the carousel... until he saw that each and every duffel coming down the belt was sporting a regulation white sport sock on the handle.
But hubby clung to the advice, and developed his own twist on it. Luckily for him, I love socks. Socks can make or break an outfit. I have tasteful argyle dress socks that I can wear with nice slacks in "businessy" situations, I have "fun" socks with characters on them, and I have two pairs of over-the-knee striped socks that I bought at Hot Topic about five years ago in a fit of forgetfulness of my age and number of children.
Now, I do not wear the striped socks with mini-skirts as they were intended to be worn. I do have some modicum of appropriateness for my age, children, and size. Instead, I wear the socks under jeans when I need a mood pick up.
I love my socks.
Also luckily for this habit of my husband's, he has three daughters. There are a plethora of different colored baby socks that have been outgrown for him to choose from. As a result, one of his duffels is adorned with a hot pink ruffled number that belonged to daughter 2, his helmet bag has a Winnie the Pooh character sock donated by daughter 3, and daughter 1 grudgingly gave up a purple fish-netty thing with pompoms on the back for his all-purpose bag.
Hubby is very secure in his man-hood.
So when I noticed, midway through hubby's last deployment, that I could not find my favorite pair of orange and green striped over-the-knee socks (YOU try wearing those socks and not being in a good giggly mood!) I should have known. But hubby's bags had been decorated already, so I assumed I was safe.
I searched under my bed (gross, I should never do that). I searched in my closet. I looked in the "dead sock" pile. I accused my eldest child of sock thievery (her reaction was, "Mom, why would I EVER want to dress like you, you hippie!"). Not being able to find my sock was seriously making me depressed. And still, I never guessed what had really happened to it.
But it was the second thing I saw at the airport, attached to an overstuffed all purpose bag. My husband and my sock had come home. What a glorious reunion.
