How about we talk about the bizarre and twisted history of socks ...? did you know that the people who wore the first socks -- The Sock People -- were considered to be prophets, and everyone would listen to what they said, and if the things that they said didn't come true, they would be killed. Often in some way involving their own socks ...?

STRANGE, BUT TRUE!

Alex wrote:

Yes, the Sock People of Lower Sockia. Also inventors of the Toque, another fascinating piece of clothing.

Did you know the toque was originally invented to protect the heads of sheep? Strange but true! It gradually found more use in human society when a poor shepherd (who lost his hat in the great wind storm of naught-9) borrowed his sheep, Ed`s, toque to keep his head warm.

L e x wrote:

Well that only stands to reason, 'cause after all, what is a toque, but a sock for your head.

I had heard about that Shepherd and Ed the sheep, but did *you* know that even though that shepherd had started wearing the touque after that storm, and it worked very well at keeping his head warm, it didn't catch on for quite some time afterward, mostly because Ed the sheep was quite unpopular in the shepherd's villiage. He was smelly and ill-tempered, and the villagers often threw rocks and potatoes at him.

It wasn't until the day that Ed saved many small children from a raging schoolhouse fire that the touque became popular. Villagers would often set their touques on fire as a tribute to Ed, who perished in the fire. However, they found that, although the flaming toques were keeping their heads quite toasty, that wearing a flaming toque was often fatal, not to mention that they were the leading cause of many more burned-down schoolhouses.

Alex wrote:

I`ll bet you didn`t know that that was the *only* schoolhouse in Lower East Sockia and when it burned down (even though Ed valiantly tried to save it) all the young children were forced to leave town to receive a proper education while a new schoolhouse was being built. This took 11 years, and when the children finally were able to attend their new school, it was too late! All of the young children`s minds were corrupted forever because they had to go to school in Metropolitan Scarfville and the no longer thought it cool to wear Socks or Toques. This was the beginning of the end of the small City of Sockia.

L e x wrote:

Yes, that is true, but what you might not know is that the main thing that brought down Sockia after the schoolhouse burning was the whores. Droves of them came to Sockia from all around, because they found that they could fit in the with natives by wearing their socks and toques ... and nothing else. They were accecpted by the townspeople who were unaware of their whoring and ... well ... it was really just the whoring.

Finally, after a while, the townspeople caught on. The wives of the town's native men got suspicious, and would secretly send out their own toque-wearing sheep to follow the men when they would leave in the evening to visit the whores. The sheep -- who spoke in code that only the women seemed to understand, another lesser-known fact about Sockia -- would report that their husbands were out drinking and cavorting with the mostly naked Sockia Slatterns (which is how they came to be known) and the women decided to drive the whores out of town.

They gathered together with torches and pitchforks, and donned their black toques. They chased after these women (who they now knew of because of their trademark nudity .... and for the sexual acts that they would be caught publicly preforming on the sheep and husbands) and beat them all to death in the night. It was known as the Sockia Slattern Massacre, and word of this massacre grew and spread out to other towns, and the surrounding villiages (who had their own whores, but were quite happy with them) ostracized the Sockia people

Eventually, all the sheep of Sockia died (some say of grief over the loss of their beloved whores, which is ironic, considering that they were the ones who had ratted them out in the first place) and the remaining villagers either starved or were overtaken by the horrendous outbreak of syphillus that had spread amongst the Sockia husbands

A truly tragic story indeed!!!

Alex wrote:

Did you know that the spirit of Ed actually came back many, many years ago to wreak havoc and exact revenge on the women of Sockia for murdering his beloved whores (who, even though he died before they came to Sockia, had heard about through his weekly seances from the Sheep-Medium "Madame Edwina)

This revenge enabled him to ascend to the throne of Sockia, after, of course, he regained his mortal body by entering the body of Melvin, former Sockia Savings and Loan employee.

Ed is now the world`s only Sheep-in-human-body King.

to be continued ....