Sock angst

I did a few loads of laundry Sunday. We have a laundry "system" - dark clothes go into the green hamper, light clothes go into the white hamper, and delicates/handwash go into the folding Ikea hamper. Of course, sometimes the system breaks down - usually because the clean clothes are still sitting in one of the hampers. Sunday was one of those days - all of the dirty clothes were in the folding Ikea hamper. So first I dug out all of the darks, washed them, then dug out all of the lights, and washed them. The last load was the delicates - mostly light coloured. Except for one red sock. I'd washed the other sock with the darks - I am super paranoid about red items bleeding into the wash water, even if they've been washed several times before. This paranoia is somewhat based in fact - I once washed a red bra(that had been washed before), and hung it on the drying rack above some lighter coloured items. Water from the bra dripped down and stained the lighter colour items. But this sock had definitely been washed many times before. I almost threw it in with the rest of the load, but decided against it. So when the laundry was done, I put the clean clothes into the Ikea hamper to take upstairs. But the dirty red sock sat there, mocking me. Eventually I got on with my life, and forgot about the errant red sock. This morning I had to get up early because I had scheduled a procedure on a patient. I decided that a pair of red socks would work well with the outfit I had chosen, and dug through my sock drawer - found one red sock. Figured that it's mate couldn't be far behind - so I kept digging away (in semi-darkness since The Gambler was still asleep). Couldn't find it - so I looked in The Gambler's sock drawer. It wasn't there. Looked in the "sock overflow bin". Not there either. After close to 10 minutes of searching, I realized that this was one of the estranged red socks from the weekend. Damned sock. Much of this weekend (Other than time spent doing laundry) was spent on the home stretch of the second Das Boot Sock. And I have to say, that I am hating them. Hate the yarn (itchy! splitty! Wonky colour repeats!); hate flap heels. I couldn't tell how many rows the heel flap was on the first one. I ended up picking up loads more stitches on the second one than the first, and not realizing it until I had almost finished doing the gusset decreases, and now I might not have enough yarn left, in which case I'll have to rip back and reknit the gusset again. I Hate Flap Heels. Hate hate hate flap heels. Damned sock. It's actually quite comfy if you ask me. Maybe it's time to start working on those sleeves....