It was laundry day and it had been a couple months since there had been a missing sock, so it was due.

By now, having gone through the missing sock routine any number of times, I knew it would turn up, so I just went about searching the usual places.

Patting down the t-shirts, for example. Nope, not there. Retracing my steps to make sure I hadn’t dropped it.

Was it still in the bottom of the washing machine? Not there either.

No worries. It’ll show up eventually. It always does.

So I put the extra sock to one side and went about my other routines.

Then it was time to check the other load of wash that had just finished drying.

The towels. 

There was a good chance it was in there, I thought, as I opened the dryer door.

Of course, I didn’t expect the sock to be staring me in the face when I opened the door. (In case it isn’t clear, it’s that black thing in the very front.)