First Dates

I woke wearing nothing but a single sock. I was pretty sure that I'd been wearing two socks, and probably some other clothes, when I hit the sheets the night before. I tried to gather my thoughts, but reality was merging with fantasy, and I couldn't remember what had been a dream and what actually happened a few hours earlier.

We'd met on a dinner date. Actually two dinner dates, with different people. My date was a casual friend from the office who, apparently, was more than that to the man at a nearby table. And that man seemed to be staring at my date more than at the woman at his table. So, long story short, the two couples who left the restaurant weren't the same pairing as those who'd entered two hours earlier.

Still groggy from a restless, and rather short, sleep, I dangled my arm over the bed and groped for the other sock. The rest of my clothes probably were more important to locate at the moment, but like I said, I was groggy. So I groped. And I indeed did come up with a sock. So I sat up to put it on, and did a double take. It wasn't my sock. But it definitely was a man's sock.

Now if you're reading this and that experience sounds familiar and you're not a little freaked out, good for you. You're well adjusted. But I got a little freaked out. Where was my other sock, and whose sock did I just find beside the bed? But before I got carried away with that dilemma, I figured I'd better round up the rest of my clothes. So I did some more groping, and managed to find a pair of pants – hopefully mine. Still not fully awake, I pulled on those pants, and was relieved to find they were mine. Or at least they belonged to someone my size.

At that moment, I heard someone enter the room behind me. A voice I recognized from the night before said, “Good morning,” and the woman behind the voice handed me a badly-needed cup of coffee.

Now I should say that I'm not a heavy drinker, nor a practitioner of one-night stands, but I guess I did go a little overboard the previous evening. Luckily, the woman with the coffee and a name I couldn't quite recall acted like everything was fine, so I decided all was okay. Except two things – my missing sock, and the man's sock that wasn't mine. So, not knowing who's foot had been inside it, I pointed to the sock and just stared at the woman with a quizzical look.

She just laughed, which seemed a bit odd at the moment. “Oh,” she said. “That's Jake's.”

'Jake.' Somehow I could picture a lumberjack, or a bodybuilder, storming into the room and making me regret pretty much everything about my life.

Then she laughed again, well aware of my situation. “Jake is my dog,” she said. “And I think I just saw him with your sock.”

And with that, I offer a piece of advice. If you've never done it, I recommend that you don't ever put on a sock that's drenched in dog slobber. It's not comfortable. Believe me.

And, by the way, Mary and I are getting together this weekend. And from what she told me, Jake really enjoys his latest chew toy.