I’ve always said that symmetry is overrated. Why should everything match up perfectly in pairs? After all, people are never perfectly symmetrical (except possibly in magazine photos of airbrushed Photoshopped super models, but that’s a rant for another day).

In most of us mere mortals, the left side does not quite match the right; one ear is slightly higher than the other; one foot is slightly larger than the other — as any shoestore salesclerk would confirm — and that’s not just me, that’s all of us!

So why the big hangup about having socks that match? We all know perfectly well that the gym locker or the clothes-dryer is just going to keep on eating up random socks and leaving us with singles.

It’s a scientific fact.

One solution is to embrace the random nature of the universe and shop for wild single socks at LittleMissMatched.com — I tip my clown hat to Toronto’s fabulous Bargainista for this find — not just for kids, and not just socks! Do check out the funky mismatched pairs of flip-flops while you’re over there, and bright mixable bedding, and furniture that’s all like a great big whiteboard to fill with colourful doodles…

Another way to handle the single sock crisis, of course, is to load up on many many many identical pairs of generic department-store tube socks. That way, when one sock goes missing, its mate can be matched up smoothly with any other solo sock, and no one will ever know the difference! Practical, yes… but which of these single sock solutions would be more fun?

For those of us whose clothes dryers seem to eat one tube sock per load of laundry, here’s a solution to hunting for lost socks.

Step by step, with illustrations, it’s the definitive craft tutorial to show you how to transform those mismatched orphan socks into happy little stuffed sock monkey toys — where else, but at SuperSockMonkey.com!