Socks in Tibet.

[gallianoparfait]

I am summoned by a benign spirit and transported to the great Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. I am nearly overcome by the visionary magnificence and spiritual grandeur. But as I wait in an anteroom for further touring, I notice a laundry basket near the door. I peer into it and see an unsettling sight: hundreds, maybe thousands, of individual unpaired socks, laundered ages ago. Then it dawns on me in a flash! I recognize these as my socks, lost over the decades in numberless washers and dryers, in laundromats and laundry rooms, beneath beds, behind sofas, in trunks of cars, in cellars and attics.

So this is where they all go? But how do they get here?

Too late, I've already thrown out all their mates. Or are these the mates I threw out? I cannot tell. The mystery is not fully resolved. I risk insanity in even thinking about it any more.