Sock Badger, (sok bad-jer) n. The mystical creature that dwells in the depths of the drying machine. Not to be confused with the Honey Badger. Sock badger feeds on socks, one at a time. He eats a gym sock as an appetizer. Your wool sock is his main entree. He'll wipe his face with a crew sock before consuming it, then finish off his meal with something argyle. If he's lucky, maybe he will get his little badger paws on a toe sock. He's a sock bastard alright, and up until recently, he was never even seen by the naked eye.
This is the epic, abridged, and roughly translated tale about a young girl named Sheila who brought down this sock bandit.
* * *
Long story short, Sheila liked puppets.
Short story long, early one morning Sheila awoke to hear her mother crying. Rushing down to the laundry room, she intercepted her mother at the foot of the cellar stairs.
"Mother, mother! What hast happened to thee? Why doth thee shed tears at such an early hour of the day? Hast one seen a ghostly spirit?"
"Nay my child, nay. The reason for these emotions at such an ungodly hour is due to a missing sock. My pink Adler sock to be exact."
Sheila couldn't believe her ears. "Mother, you say you lost a pink Adler sock did you not? Surely not the pink Adler socks that hath been in the family for years!"
"Tis that sock, my dear," Sheila's mother started, "the pair of socks that your grandmother gave me as she lay on her deathbed, dying."
"Mother! You need not say 'dying' whenever you say 'deathbed'! It's redundant! From now on you need only say one or the other. Understood?"
"Yes," mother replied, wiping the tears from her eyes with the lonely pink sock.
"Mother," Sheila began, "the sock badger has once again brought sadness and unhappiness to our family, and I intend to put a stop to it this morning."
"Sheila, you need not say 'unhappiness' after 'sadness'. It's redundant. And coming from you it's like the pot calling the kettle black."
"I am sorry mother. Oh, I hate it when you use idioms, but I suppose that this time it helped to prove a point. I will no longer use both 'sadness' and 'unhappiness' in the same sentence. However I will kill that godforsaken sock badger. But to do so, first I will need that pink sock that you have decided to use as a hanky."
Mother handed over Sheila the sock. Sheila ran up to her room and got to work. It was nearing brunchtime. The sock badger would be getting hungry soon.
In her room, Sheila took out a needle, thread, and two buttons. She sewed them on in eyelike fashion, and 3 minutes later stood in the basement facing the drying machine with a hastily-made sock puppet.
Her mother was still folding her tears into the laundry.
"Mother, when I climb into the dryer, will ye please press the button to start the load?"
"Yes my dear, oh, and do be careful. And here, take my apron will you? It's become damp from my tears."
Sheila took the apron, crawled into the dryer with the pink sock puppet and a prayer. She placed puppet on her hand. She hoped that her plan would work.
After what seemed like an eternity of spinning, but what was really only ten minutes Sheila saw what looked like two beady eyes appear in the back of the spinning, cramped compartment.
The sock badger!
Sheila hid behind the apron as discretely as she could. She did her best helpless puppet impression with her hand. The sock badger immediately took notice. He calmly waltzed over to the sock puppet, clearly unaffected by the centrifugal forces that had Sheila pinned up against the wall of the drying machine.
The plan was working!
Sock badger cooly posted up next to Sheila's adorned hand. He had every intention of kidnapping this helpless sock and taking her back to his lair for his mid morning meal.
Sheila realized that this was her moment to act! She used her puppet hand to tightly grasp the sock badger's throat! She continued to hold on tight as she reached for the apron and fastened one of the apron strings around the badgers neck! She held on as tight as she could until it stopped breathing! Then she waited patiently for the dry cycle to end. Fortunately for her, this particular load was set on speed dry!
The dryer door opened and Sheila tumbled out, clutching the badger in one hand, and $.13 in spare change she had found in the other.
She looked directly up at her mother as the whole world continued to spin violently.
"The sock badger hath been slain, Mother" Sheila said with a nauseous smile. "I killed him before he badgered us to death."
Mother smiled at her daughter's unintentional idiom. She bent down and kissed her daughter's puppet hand. Then she put on the apron while it was still warm and ran up to the kitchen to make scones.
Long story short again, the sock bandit king had been destroyed.
Short story a little bit longer again, later that day, Sheila took the sock badger to the local taxidermist and made a puppet out of the sock bastard. Next she wrote a puppet musical about that morning's events.
She is currently performing her show 6 nights a week at the local community center.
