1) Suggest you contact Lonely Socks. Some of yours may be at the halfway house, waiting on a plane ticket from you to come home.

2) This is mostly a matter of learning to re-direct all your cravings to high cocoa chocolate, and then making sure you never run out of that. I recommend Lindt 85. Melt slowly on your tongue, for full calming effect.

3) Skinny cats don't have enough padding on their bones, so they typically do make a lot more noise than their better sound proofed cousins. Fatten up your tabby, and enjoy the blissful silence.

Why is it no matter which country I am in I always have to change the toilet roll? Is it a world wide conspiracy?

3) Skinny cats don't have enough padding on their bones, so they typically do make a lot more noise than their better sound proofed cousins. Fatten up your tabby, and enjoy the blissful silence.

nah, I have a 15 pound fatty and she sounds like the elephants AND Hannibal's entire army trampeling through the kitchen at four am.

gomi, I don't know but you made me chuckle.

paulsc, the mister's cat is a tuxedo-clad tyrant. Attempts to engage him in lagniappe have thus far been spurned.

I indeed do also have a high cocoa chocolate fetish, but some days you just want the pho, yo.

That's why I buy socks in 6-packs. Except for sometimes having an even number, sometimes having an odd number, I'll only really care about a missing sock when I have only one left...

And then it must already be so awful that I have a public safety obligation of buying new socks.

Smober the Sock Goblin

Smober the Sock Goblin lives under your stairs
if your home doesn’t have them still he is there.
He’s clammy and dusty and a little bit mad
not angry - but crazy - and little bit bad.

When Smober the Sock Goblin comes out to eat
he crosses the floor with slapping bare feet.
He goes to the dryer and opens it wide
then stands on his tiptoes and peers deep inside.

Then Smober the Sock Goblin begins to drool
and gets a gleam in his eye that is terribly cruel.
In he reaches and steals every left sock
and takes them all home to cook in his crock.

Smober the Sock Goblin stews them in oil
and dances a jig as he watches them boil.
When he is sure that they are quite done
He slops them out on a dryer lint bun.

He gives his sharp teeth a little black lick
He gulps down those socks quick quick quick.
That’s where the socks go - if you even care -
Smober the Sock Goblin eats half the pair!

I may actually know the answer to the sock caper, but only if you use a front loading, public washing machine. Seems they stick to the sides of washers and subsequently mix with the next person's wash (we've inherited a few stowaways). Now, everytime I use a washer, I spin it manually at the end and find a sock or two.

That, or they're hiding in the lint trap.