Try the penny sock market

By now you've seen that spate of Rolex spam come and go; now apparently the new trend is about penny stocks. It's amazing to me how often spammers manage to perfectly nail some demographic that I don't partake in as a consumer (stranded in a foreign land knowing just where millions can be reached if you send us money, try Botox--at-home, or male, er, "growth" ).

But now, as I've contemplated my drawers and gym bag and washer basin (on a new health kick, don't ask), and check my email, I find the spam subject line that tugs at my heartstrings. Even though I know, because right next to it is a spam about penny stock, that this is merely a typo and I don't click on it. But just reading about penny socks opens up my imagination.

Now, there are many kinds of sock aficionados, and sock suppliers. Besides those novelty stores in malls with the socks that look like alligators or watermelon puppets for young children, there are all sorts of sock traps ready to snare the unwary. For example, don't buy a Ped if you get cold ankles. Don't buy beautiful trouser socks and use them with your GoreTex boots by mistake in the morning (you will think your feet have shrunk, your heels slip unmercifully, and more than that, the gap lets the Seattle rain in). Remember that angora socks are among the most fragile on the planet and should be kept in a museum (when not in the fridge to keep them from shedding). Cashmere socks to me seem like the forbidden fruit - I can't wear wool so my sweaters are all cashmere, but it feels unholy to do anything so mundane as SWEAT in cashmere. Sort of like burping through a silk handkerchief, it just should not be done.

If you go to REI (or REI.com for that matter) the matter gets almost metaphysical. What do you plan for your day? Nevermind your outfit, it's what's on the footsies that counts. You must pick the commando-style sock to address your needs, whether you are freezing your butt off on a mountain snowboarding off cliffs, or losing all feeling in your tuchus snarfing the moguls or whatever the skiiing phrase is for showering snow sheets onto unsuspecting snowboarders. You basically have to buy your boots and socks together because if one is burlier than the other, it won't work. Are these socks hiking socks? Or just wimpy all-terrain socks? Are you camping with the grizzlies or sailing in the Bahamas? All of these action-socks will cost you a pretty penny.

Which leads me to my morning muse, about spam and the penny sock. Some day, there will come a time when mankind is free of the petty bonds of ecological disaster and technological restraint. Sometime, we will create socks so eco-friendly and so abundantly, there WILL BE a penny sock market. And on that day, the birds (which in my utopia will still be around, among zillions of other endangered species) will sing, and the fish will frolic in the streams, and as Betsy works out on her elliptical trainer on those mornings, it will be with perfectly matched socks.

Our day will come....live it vivid!

 

Betsynote Dec 2: PSSTT! Check out and snag your own blog space at MSN Spaces. You don't know how many times I've been asked by customers and others if I can host them on blogs.msdn.com and the answer is no....but now, you can get yer own digs on MSN!