Melting socks and brilliant sons

by Shirley Bahlmann
I got to go to the LTUE writing conference at BYU last weekend! WooHoo! "Life the Universe and Everything" was smart enough to invite my oldest son, Andy, (Andrew on the program) as a presenter on Tolkein and the Wanderer. I dropped off three of my other sons to listen to their brother, but then I couldn't find a parking space to save my life! (They REALLY should have a "mother of presenters" private lot.) Finally I had to park off campus and run like a maniac to get there 10 minutes late. Andy was so professorial that he even read some Old English. The audience seemed to understand his lecture, even though most of it went over my head until the question and answer section. Then it got fun and laughing, so I could follow that! Take my word for it, he did a GREAT job!
To my chagrin, I'd only packed one pair of pink fuzzy socks for the 3-day trip. Well, I didn't pack them, they were on my feet. No worries! I washed them at night and hung them up to dry. But by morning, they were still damp. I could fix that. I stuck a hair dryer in the sock opening and turned it on. First steam came out, then a stinky smell. "Hey, what's up?" I thought. "Didn't I use enough soap?" I left the dryer drying and went to get my perfume to spray on my socks. By then it seemed the sock was dry enough, so I pulled it off the dryer nozzle and put the other sock on. Then I noticed crusty patches inside the dry sock. What the HEY? I turned the sock inside out and saw that the furries on my sock had melted together in patches! Ahhh! The stinky smell wasn't dirty sock, it was melting sock!
I pulled the socks on anyway, but the melted parts scratched my skin. I thought for sure that my favorite socks were ruined. But wait... no! They weren't, not when I turned them inside out! My feet were happy, I was happy, and I hope you're happy to know that you should never give up. Take courage! There's always a way to get past the trials of melted socks in your life.