John rummaged through the laundry basket, fingers brushing against a sticky sock. ‘This one’s clean!’ he muttered, yanking it free. It was his dad’s. Panicked, he dove back in, emerging with a pair of neon-green argyle socks. He slid them on, smug. The front door creaked open. ‘Hey, babe!’ he called, strutting into the living room. His girlfriend stared at his feet. ‘Where are your socks?’ she asked. John lifted a leg. The left sock was inside out; the right had a hole shaped like a crescent moon. ‘Uh… I bought these on sale?’ he tried. She snorted. ‘Those look like they survived a war.’ The sock on his foot twitched. John froze. ‘Did your sock just… move?’
The sock sprang off his foot, fluttering to the floor like a wounded bird. His girlfriend gasped. ‘It’s alive!’ John lunged, but the sock zipped under the couch. A faint “bleep” echoed from the cushions. ‘Oh no,’ he whispered. ‘That’s my dad’s old Roomba.’ The sock, now a tiny red dot, zoomed out, trailing a stream of lint. His girlfriend dissolved into giggles. ‘You’re wearing a robot.’ John stared at the chaos. ‘I just wanted one clean sock…’
