Melissa did the laundry at least a couple times a week at her Manhattan condo.
She was thankful her place was tiny enough that things wouldn’t go missing very often.
But it was simply a matter of time. Eventually, her toddler daughter’s socks went missing—one sock each from two different pairs.
Melissa searched and searched for the two socks for more than a week with no luck. She was convinced the laundry machine ate them.
About two months later, Melissa was putting her daughter, Abby, to bed when Abby felt a tiny bump under her bedsheet. The two lifted the sheet and found one of Abby’s socks rolled up in a ball.
Melissa was excited at least one sock had been found, and now she was motivated to find the last missing sock.
The next day, Abby came home from school and was playing with her toys. Melissa came by and told Abby to change into her pajamas. As she did, she saw something red in Abby’s sweatshirt’s hoodie.
It was the other missing sock! It traveled in Abby’s hood all day throughout Manhattan and miraculously stayed put.
The socks were a tiny bit small on Abby now, but Melissa was relieved that they were at least found.
Li Chen, an employee at BKM Laundromat in Manhattan, New York:
“Whenever we find something we always put it on the side for the customer,” Li said.
The most common things Li and her team usually find are little socks and little under-things.
“People usually lose small things,” she said.
Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this short story, excluding interviews, are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
