October '17

The Supreme Sock Council devoted its October session to debating the question of equality. The Councilors have realized that the commonly used decimal numeral system, which incorporates ten basic digits, has historically been linked to counting on one’s fingers, and is thus guilty of discriminating against the remaining ten pedal digits. A healthy adult person has twenty digits altogether. The pedal decade, however, is often left behind, simply because its members have grown up elsewhere and look different. Should we then not put an end to this oppression and transition to the more egalitarian vigesimal system? We were very surprised to learn that the vigesimal numeral system and the related use of one’s feet as a “handy” abacus became popular mainly in cultures used to walking barefoot, i.e. without socks. The confusion and discombobulation this discovery caused among our Councilors left a trace on the October sock model. It was supposed to be a simple square sock, but we were just not able to get it right.