THE TAO OF SOCKS....

My sister, Norma, dearly beloved - recently a very welcome visitor to our humble abode here in Antipodian Adelaide, will understand this comprehensively.
In fact, we spoke about it while she was here.
Socks - the singularity of those little foot wrappers and their necessary partnerships with like-fashioned companions - especially during the laundering process - is a topic upon which my big sister and I wholeheartedly agree. They cannot be separated during this process - it is a crime against some cosmic code or something and it jangles the sensibilities of the chronic process control freak who wants to see a beautifully ordered clothesline with socks pegged up in pairs, wafting in the tepid breezes of these fair climes.
Anything else simply breaks down that immutable cosmic order.
It must do, surely?
Socks should not be washed apart from their "sole" mates - that's wrong, that's just plain wrong...
My wife, through disbelieving eyes, sighs as I dump the single socks she's just washed back into the washing machine....
"But they'll be paired up when we do a third load," says she, quite calmly and unarguably logically.
Equally logically I counter, "There isn't space on the line for a third load, babe. That means two options face us - you (I'm not wrestling with the portable clothes line) will have to do the third load and hang the stuff on that infernal contraption or we simply leave the lonely single socks in the washing machine to be reunited with their partners when the current laundry is removed from the sensible outside, no-fuss clothesline. I admit that the socks currently reposing in the machine will undergo a further washing cycle thereby rendering them arguably cleaner than their temporarily displaced companions but that is infinitely better (to me) than having single socks drying in isolation and deposited somewhere (there is no feasible holding zone for them) before being reunited with their sole mates prior to rolling and placement within their designated drawer space - white sports pairs - top drawer, day-to-day lightweight working socks one drawer down and heavier winter socks on the top shelf of the closet adjacent to my tracksuit pants...."
I mean that's all perfectly sensible and normal isn't it?
My wife's eyes had glazed over at this stage and a slightly twisted, beatific smile creased her lovely features.
I could see that not only was she grappling with the prospect of tangling with the portable clothesline (only to be used in the direst of circumstances), she was contemplating whether or not she would ever understand the foibles of my domestic mind.
She said, "Okay."
That was that.
And thus these lonely, frightened, wet, cold single units repose at the bottom of the washing machine drum like inmates in a sterile prison chamber and this fills me no undue distress but less, I admit, than the prospect of dealing with washed and dried single socks reposing somewhere in limbo, unwearable and desolate, craving to be reunited with their rightful companions.
Is it just Norma and me or is there some form of feng-shui taoist sock code at play here that affects everyone other than my wonderful wife?
I'll wager she is alone in her disdain for forced sock separation through the laundering process.
I think I'll check in on the little guys when I make the tea just now. I'm not obsessing, you understand, but I do need to know if they're still okay...