Tips from the Trenches: A Guide to Practical Parenting

The juice box is for scale.

Since I've been tossing tips left and right these days (well, at least once to the left right left right left), I thought I would delve in to a problem I alluded to on Facebook not so long ago. I really thought I might be able to get a straight answer for once, but not a single person took a stand to help me out. Shocking as that may be to most of you, I've decided to try again.

Due to the sheer quantity of laundry that I have to do, it should go without saying that I have no desire to make the job bigger than it already is. We all know how much I love the topic of laundry and I have an honest to God laundry dilemma. So here goes...it's about socks.

I hate the fact that socks are an item if clothing that only gets clean on one side. And that is at best, really, because most of the socks I wash are already balled up to such a degree that I'm pretty sure no water actually penetrates the dirty, stinky, knotted lump that is tossed with nary a care in to the machine. Socks are dirty from both the feet in them and the environment around them. Pretty disgusting really.

So what do I do? I want to wash my socks according to some reasonable standard that I can feel confident represents the average laundry aficionado's efforts. I don't want my kids to be any dirty (or any cleaner really 'cause that's just too much work) than the kids sitting next to them in class.

I will not wash them twice. Nor will I bleach them every time I put wash them. Half the time they are stuck down the leg of some one's jeans anyway.

What I want to know is...is it more important that socks are clean on the inside or on the outside?

To answer this question, I'm posting a poll and asking you to vote. If you have extra tips, you are also welcome to post them in the comments as always. At the end of the week, where the votes were cast and will (probably) just do that.

Please note that all votes are anonymous (unless you make a comment, of course). Let me know what you think. Go ahead, sock it to me...(sorry, couldn't resist).