Casualty

Last night found The Boy and I clambering around on the underside of our local abandoned railroad bridge in pursuit of excellence in sock photography (as you do).  This particular spot had lots of advantages.  It’s local, accessible through one of the area parks, and maintained enough to be safe yet decrepit enough to be picturesque.  It’s really all you could hope for, and the shots came out beautifully.

Alas, there was one small problem.

Some of those more picturesque bits?  They were sticky.  Sticky in a way that got all over the bottom of my sock.  Black, sticky, gooey tar (or, more technically, probably creosote) on my lovely pale green wool socks. Quite a lot of it.  Enough that this happened too.

Nifty.  So after a restorative dinner and a beverage or two, we came home, and I went straight to the computer to see how to best remove such marks from fabric.  I set the socks on my desk (goo side up thank you).  A moment later, a snarling, thrashing streak of fur leapt up beside me and began trying to save me from the terror of stained socks.  It was the normally mellow Barry.  The idea of sock stains (or, more likely, the smell of the creosote) had driven him into a kitten frenzy.

I snapped only the quickest of pictures before separating the combatants, (the socks had suffered enough trauma, and I didn’t think Barry would benefit from a creosote snack), but I hope it captures the mood of the moment.  The socks are undergoing treatment, I’ll report back once I know their prognosis.