The tendency of one’s socks to disappear is something we all have experienced. This phenomenon (yes, I believe that word is apt) has been discussed, joked about and analyzed by people for seemingly forever.

Personally, I have never paid much attention to it.

Until now.

For most of my life, I knew (or so I thought) why my socks kept disappearing. One, I had two brothers who would borrow/steal them. Two, my mom would sometimes drop one in the abyss that was our laundry room (a sock that fell to the ground in there was surely never to be heard from again). In short, my socks were not “disappearing” – they were being stolen and/or lost by family members.

However, since I graduated from college my socks have continued to disappear. Now that I was out on my own and in charge of washing my own clothes, I could no longer finger my mom as a reason socks were vanishing. However, one of my brothers lived with me. Naturally, I assumed he was continuing his side job as an evil sock thief. After all, once an evil sock thief, always an evil sock thief.

But earlier this year, that brother got married and moved out. Since April, I have lived alone. And my socks are still disappearing. Naturally, I have come to the only logical conclusion one could make in such a situation:

Someone, probably an alien, is breaking into my home and stealing my socks.

Why an alien? Because nothing else in my home is being stolen. Your garden-variety human thief would take my bobble heads, my assortment of “dogs playing poker” wall pictures, and my snake-skin cowboy boots hidden in the closet. Only an alien would pass on such jewels.

So the question is: what kind of an alien am I dealing with?

If it’s an alien like the ones in the movie Signs, keeping my socks soaked in water would solve the problem. Of course, that would mean my socks would always be wet. Wearing soaking wet socks to work each day could prove to be problematic.

If it’s an alien like the one in the movie Alien, my only recourse is kidnapping Sigourney Weaver and putting her in charge of guarding my socks. In that movie and all its sequels, she was the only thing to ever stop the aliens.

If it’s an alien like the one in E.T., I’ll have to figure out a way to shoot Reece’s Pieces at the aliens. Or something like that. I haven’t seen E.T. in forever – that is how they killed him, right?

Mark my words: I will stop these aliens. I will make them pay. And I’m not just doing it for me. I’m doing it for Tom Sawyer. And for Ghandi. And for Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. And for hippies.

I’m doing it for sockless people everywhere.