Socks

In my house, there are two children who each have two feet.  Two feet on each of two people makes four feet.  I've counted, I'm certain this is right.  Yet for some reason, every day I find five socks laying about my house.  These socks might be in the living room, the entry hall, the laundry room, the bathroom, I've even found them under the kitchen table, but the number is always the same:  five.  

And for some reason, this stumps me.  Why would people with an even number of feet need an odd number of socks?  Do these people take extra socks in their pockets in case a sock experiences some sort of trauma that requires changing?  Do these people have a third leg I've yet to discover?  Is the dog using one sock to keep his stubby little tail warm?  I'm really clueless on this.  

I'm also perplexed by the fact these socks materialize from thin air.  The other night I watched the girls peel off their socks in the entry hall.  Four barefeet slapped across the hardwood floor as they made their way to their bedrooms, yet in the hall I found five socks.   Then last night, I saw the two-legged creatures strip and crawl into the bathtub.  I saw four feet and found one extra sock on the bathroom floor.  

Not surprisingly, my laundry never comes out even on socks.  Some weeks I'm off by 2 socks, others weeks its 3 socks but it's never the same number two weeks in a row.  I'm not disturbed by this, but I am quite curious about the chronic odd sock count.  I suppose it's yet another mystery of parenthood to which I may never find an answer.