Single Sock Seeks Sole Mate

Question:  How many socks are in this picture?

Answer: Two and a half.

Bonus Question:  How many pairs of socks are in the above picture?

Bonus Answer: Zero, zip, zilch, null, nada, none.

Where are the mates to those socks?  Um, well, I haven't bothered to knit them yet.  There is a well-documented phenomenon among sock knitters called Second Sock Syndrome.  Usually SSS prevents the knitter from producing a matched pair of socks because said knitter either found the knitting of the first sock to be a big pain in the you-know-where or it wasn't challenging enough and now the thought of doing it a second time bores them to tears.

As far as I know, I am not actually suffering from SSS for these reasons.  My problem seems to stem from the fact that I still cannot turn a heel from memory.  I have no good excuse for this but I do fear that by adding anything new to my brain, I would be pushing something else out causing me to start forgetting things like how to drive or tie my shoes.  That said, I often knit in public without my instructions handy so if I have a sock on my needles that is at the critical "heel turning stage," and I don't have time to actually perform the steps necessary to complete the "heel turning stage" before I know I will be knitting in public again, I transfer the sock from my primary needles to my project holding needles and start a new sock that I know I will be able to mindlessly knit away on wherever I might be (in line at the bank, at Disneyland, waiting for a movie to start, watching a movie, etc.).

I know all of this probably sounds like terribly fractured logic but it somehow seems to make sense when I'm in the midst of putting a sock on hold.  I am hoping that my 40 day mission to complete old projects before starting anything new will help to alleviate my SSS.  There is a possibility that I will attempt to memorize how to turn a sock heel so just as a precaution, if you see me behind the wheel of a car with a puzzled look on my face or walking through a public place with my shoelaces untied watch out, I just might be trying to remember something.