Socks that shrink three sizes in the wash.
Socks that mysteriously change from green to blue in the wash.
Socks that enter the washing machine as neatly-paired twins, but emerge from it it as single waifs, with no sign of their other halves to be found, either on that day or ever after. Thus proving that the back of the washing machine is a time/space travel port, through which garments pass, only to emerge blinking in some other dimension. The wrong size, the wrong colour, and probably with a nagging suspicion that something they used to know is missing from their new lives in Alpha Centauri.
For some reason I'm reminded of how Willie Rushton described his experiments in the 1970s with disposable paper underpants . No need for washing machines at all - you just threw them in the bin when you'd finished with them. What could be more modern, or more suited to the needs of a rogue male bachelor?
Alas, the dream had faded by lunchtime, as tattered chunks of the garment broke away one by one and descended embarrassingly toward earth via the bottoms of his trouser legs. In Rushton's majestic phrase, they had been "blasted to shreds by the rigours of life". What a myriad of dark possibility in those eight little words.
BJ