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Anyone else do "last chance socks"?

That thing where you put on a fresh pair of socks and one has a hole so you think well I went to all that trouble to pull it on, this will be your last day little buddy, I’ll just throw it away after I wear it today.

Last chance underwear happen now and again as well but I guess it depends on where the hole is.

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  • I don't even get to choose what I wear, so no.

    • Are you paralyzed, elderly or an infant and someone dresses you?

      • No, I am 17 which means I still have to live with parents and among other issues my mom doesn't allow me to have access to my clothes. So, if I want some, I have to ask. In the end, I can get fresh underwear daily, but the rest only weekly, which isn't exactly optimal.

        Oh, and we don't have a functional washing machine for years, so it's not like I could just keep some of my clothes away from her.

        • This sounds really fucked up.

        • I can't address the situation, but you should know that you can always hand wash limited items if you know you're going to need them, like a spare pair of socks.

          At the bathroom sink, get them good and wet, hand wash with ANY available body-safe soap (hand soap, shower gel, shampoo, even mild dishwashing liquid) by rubbing the soap around in your wet hands to create a lather, and then add that lather to the items, rubbing them all together well between your hands for a couple of minutes. Less is more: don't use so much soap that you have to rewash to get all the soap out. Use as little as you can. Rinse well, and then look and smell: if they look clean and smell clean, and you got as much of the soap out as you can, they won't embarrass you. No one will be able to tell you handwashed them when you wear them.

          Squeeze as much water out as you can, but avoid wringing because it stretches and can even damage your items. Hang them up over a towel rod, a hamper rail, the side of the tub, or even laid out across a bed or the back of a sofa, using a towel underneath if you don't want to get something wet (like a wooden chair back) and they will dry completely overnight. Don't try to dry them in a closet or places with limited airflow. Hand washed items tend to be stiff when you air dry them like this, especially if you're using non-laundry soap, but put them on and the scratchy stiffness goes away instantly.

          This isn't for every day use, or for endlessly repeated practice, but it absolutely works in a pinch and used to be common practice back when people didn't have so many clothes and/or their own washing machines. It won't hurt your clothes at all to do this as long as they are machine washable anyway, and even if you do it repeatedly just try get them into a machine every so often to get the non-laundry-soap buildup out of them. As long as it's not a special care item, you literally cannot screw it up by handwashing it carefully and rinsing it as thoroughly as you can.

          Everyone should know how to hand wash an item of clothing in an emergency, and now you do too.

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