I need sock recommendations
My Instagram feed is always tempting me into making clever little purchases (Christmas ornaments, faux-vintage t-shirts, dish towels with vulgar sayings on them), and recently I was lured into buying eleven pairs of Nordic-style knitted socks. They looked so pretty and colorful in the ad, plus I had eleven pairs of socks to get rid of so it just made sense.
Unfortunately, when my Nordic-style socks arrived they felt cheap and sort of synthetically puffy and I didn’t want them. But returning Nordic-style socks is not so simple! There was no automated returns form so I had to email Nordic-style sock headquarters and tell them I wanted to return these eleven pairs of socks. To this email I got a surprised reply from a Nordic-style sock representative asking me why I wanted to return the socks. I then replied to their email and said that the socks were too thick for me. (I didn’t outright call them “cheap” because I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of a person who might possibly take pride in their work at Sock HQ. After all, who am I but a woman who once actually knitted her own pair of Nordic-style socks that then shrunk in the wash and became laughably unwearable? My opinion on anyone’s socks is worth less than nish.)
Fortunately, Nordic-style sock HQ needed no further information about my sock feelings and replied with a return authorization code, and guess what, it cost me $39.00 to ship back those goddamn cheap socks in the box they came in. That plus the $13.00 I paid to have them shipped to me in the first place and I was out $52 for taking a chance on eleven pairs of unpleasantly puffy socks that I once thought were beautiful in an Instagram advertisement, and which I keep seeing on Instagram because the algorithm is so happy that I clicked on an ad once and bought some.
All of this is to say, if you know of some cute, good quality socks to buy (solids and stripes are what I’m mostly looking for, like Happy Socks but not so goofy, I’m not a goofy sock person right now), please leave a comment below. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Other products I am irritated about
I subscribe to the Wirecutter emails from the N.Y. Times and every week they send me new product recommendations. Often they review things I don’t care about (camping gear, earbuds, fishing rods), but other times I’ve been very pleased with their tips — I have happily purchased more than one J. Crew broken-in t-shirt, as well as Company Store Legends Luxury Luxe (say it five times fast) flannel sheets, which are pricy but heavenly, and I’m considering amending my will so I can have one as a shroud when I’m dead*.
However, this last week’s email took the cake. Their reviewer began by describing how embarrassing it was that their children’s poo left skid marks in the family toilet bowl, and my first thought was, it’s not hard to tell your kids to throw a Kleenex in there and poop on that, or a few sheets of toilet paper to break the fall and protect your porcelain. I mean also, toilet brushes exist? But our reviewer went on to recommend their solution to this (made-up) problem, which was a silicone spray that you can coat your toilet bowl with that makes all the poo slide away without a trace. Just, yeah — flush more chemicals into the water system, that’s cool? I don’t actually know what the environmental breakdown of this particular spray is, but I know I’m not going to spend $40 for a bottle of it. That’s right, you heard me: $40.
I will spend money on used yoga clothes, though
I buy all my yoga clothes used from eBay, it’s so cheap and easy and I don’t care if it’s been sweated on by someone else before me. Lululemon often discontinues styles I get attached to and once no one else wants them (I’m thinking specifically of those Power-Y tops that you could practically wear as a dress, they’re so long) they’re very affordable. I recently bought five of them in a lot from a seller who cut the price so low they ended up being $10 apiece, plus free shipping, and they’re all in terrific condition. Genuine Lululemon holds up forever and it doesn’t matter to me that they’re all random and off-putting colors, or that they arrive stinking of fabric softener. The Downy washes out eventually and I don’t wear this shit to impress the PhD candidate on the mat next to me who’s sweated through his Santa Barbara Farmer’s Market t-shirt five minutes into class (bless him, though, he’s darling).
The only time eBay Lululemon ever backfired on me was when I bought some intensely purple ankle-length yoga pants that started smelling like someone else’s crotch once they warmed up. I really wanted to apologize to everyone around me that afternoon, but we all stuck it out and I finished my practice, went home, and soaked those nasty pants in vinegar. They smelled fine after that, but the memory of that particular stench never really faded so I eventually gave them to the thrift. Whoever has them now is one degree removed from their terrible origins and I hope they enjoy them for years to come.
* Not an ad! Plus, both J. Crew and Company Store are always having sales, and Company Store will send you discount codes if you sign up for their emails.