The Socks Break Out

“But how can we get out?” Demon Dave asked plaintively. “They’d see us if we tried to get out the door.”

“That is a stumper,” his boss admitted, after cuffing Dave on the head for being whiny. “Stan, any ideas?”

The Sock Monkey rubbed a paw over the bald pate of his head. Everyone looked at him expectantly; he was usually the first Sock to come up with a course of action. And yet, nothing came to mind. The doors were monitored, the windows had screens, and he had yet to find a mouse hole.

“Maybe we could con the demon child into taking one of us out? And then that Sock could let the others out?” Stan knew it was a lame idea as soon as it came out of his mouth.

“Are you cuckoo for cocoa puffs?” Satan asked in disbelief. “Who’s going to volunteer to go outside with that nut job? She’d dismember first, and lie about it later.”

Demon Dave had turned gray when Stan mentioned his idea and his usual sooty color came back as soon as Satan dismissed it. He’d been afraid they’d send him with Demon child. Just because they called her Demon child and he was a demon was where any resemblance between the two ended. He was evil because he was a demon. She was evil because she enjoyed it. This was a huge, mongo difference. One didn’t enjoy demonhood, one endured it.

Just then, the front door flew open and Kande stepped in with a laundry basket. “Whoa. This house is filthy. Did someone have a party where I wasn’t invited?”

Satan sniffed. “We’ve never invited you to a party, and yet you continue to show up like the bad seed you are.”

Kande scowled at him. “Keep talking smack and I won’t leave my laundry. Where’s my Sis?”

“I’m right here.” Heidi tiptoed gingerly into the room, moving ankle-deep through the debris the Socks had continued to scatter throughout their debate. “What do you mean, you’re leaving your laundry? Do YOU think I’m the maid too?”

“The S.O. is in Alaska,” Kande whined. “She usually does my laundry.”

“You’re pathetic, you know that?” Heidi sighed. “Fine. The Socks will carry it piece by piece into the laundry room.”

A chorus of ‘Are you crazy? Us work?’ breaks out.

Heidi holds up a hand. “Either you do as I ask, or the pizza gravy train ends here.”

Stan and Satan led the Socks into grabbing myriad pieces of Kande’s laundry and trailing toward the laundry room. Several of them had to be carried once they got a whiff of her socks. The Sock Sisters watched them making their sorry way out of the room.

Kande turned towards Heidi. “You feed them pizza gravy? No wonder they’re all looking like they’ve put on some junk in the trunk.”

As the sisters squabble about the Socks’ diet and resulting lumpiness, Stan and Satan led the crew into the laundry room.

“If you push me up, I can get into the washing machine and you can toss up the laundry,” Stan informed the assembled crew, turning tail first toward the group and waiting expectantly.

Satan sighed. “OK, get on my shoulders.”

Stan expertly clambered up while Satan staggered beneath his weight. “Oh my aching shoulders, you weigh a ton for a sock.”

Stan’s retort was muffled when he fell headfirst into a jumble of wet clothes. Finally, he emerged. “Crap, there’s a bunch of clothes in here we’re going to have to transfer to the dryer.”

Heidi suddenly popped her head in, scaring half the Socks into fainting fits. “I forgot to tell you, there’s damp clothes in the washer that you’ll need to transfer to the dryer.” She disappeared again.

Satan threw up his hands. “Good night, that woman is treating us like household slaves. “ He went down when Stan threw a sopping wet pair of jeans on him.

“Boss! Boss! Are you OK?” Demon Dave struggled to lift the jeans off his sprawled employer while the muffled cursing caused his cheeks to burn red.

Satan managed to struggle from beneath the jeans in spite of Demon Dave’s fumbled attempts at help. “Well. Now I suppose we’re somehow supposed to lift these into the dryer?” he spat, looking up at the dryer door. To a Sock, the door stood a whole head over the tallest Sock. He sighed. “Demon Dave, Mabel, get over here and give me a boost. And put down that rosary!” he barked at Mabel. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Satan put his foot on their joined hands, and the two boosted him up to the dryer opening. “Hey, there’s a hole back here!” he shouted down to the Socks.

Stan stopped throwing wet clothes out of the washer. “Really? Where does it go?”

“I don’t know.” Satan’s voice came out of the dryer, oddly distorted. “I’m going to check it out.”

The assembled Socks wait patiently at first, and then grow increasingly agitated as the minutes ticked by. Demon Dave’s eyes welled with tears. “Boss?” he called tremulously. “Boss!”

“Shhhh!” Stan jumped out of the washer and listened intently. “There’s a tapping noise. Hear it?”

The group all strained to hear. Sure enough, there was a noise that sounded suspiciously like someone pounding on a window, hoarsely screaming for them to ‘look up, look up, damnit!’