I blame those lunatics at CERN

Nico and I had a few errands to run this afternoon, including a lunch thing with some people who hadn't met him yet. I won't deny that I like to show off my kid a bit, and dressed him accordingly in a hippie "going green" onesie, his cutest pair of pants, and my favorite pair of his warm socks. Because he views his carseat as an instrument of The Man, he protested mightily the entire time he was in it, from the dining room to the site of our lunch date. And then, because apparently he really wants that pony, he behaved like an angel through our hour-long lunch, a visit to the office where I interned in college, a quick stop at the library, and a trip to buy some cloth diapers.

But one of his socks didn't make the trip. They were both on his feet when I buckled him into his carseat, and ten minutes later when I got him out of the car, one sock was gone. I looked on both sides of his carseat base, in the carseat, even down in the crevices of his bunting. No sock. After lunch, I looked on the ground beside the car and checked behind the seat. No sock. I began to wonder if he'd kicked it off before we left the house, and when we got home I checked the garage, the path we'd taken through the backyard, the dining room, and even the places where the dog tends to put things that he takes. No sock.

The damn thing has utterly vanished. There's really only one explanation left. Testing at the Large Hadron Collider must've opened up a small black hole after all. Those guys at CERN totally owe us a new pair of tiny striped socks.