Stolen Booties

At least the 172 pairs of soccer socks were clean. One shudders to imagine the collective smell of 344 dirty athletic socks.

In fact, the socks in question were brand-stinking new.

And that left a 30-year-old man with some explaining to do, given that socks are normally considered a re-usable commodity. Police stopped the man as he walked down the street weighed down by two lumpy garbage bags on Monday, Dec. 17.

One can only imagine the possible excuses: Maybe he wanted to avoid doing laundry. This general aversion to dealing with washing machines has led many other men to throw away what they could easily wash and reuse. Or maybe the man's girlfriend had barred all stiff, stinky socks from entering the apartment. Possibly there was a Guinness World Records attempt in the making. Or maybe he simply had a lot of soccer playing fans on his Christmas list.

Whatever his story, police didn't buy it. After listening to the man's "conflicting statements" about the origin of the socks, police decided they had been stolen.

They eventually determined the socks had been swiped from a container at a trucking company where they were awaiting shipment. Police said that the man, said to be a drug addict, had hoped to make money for his habit by selling the socks.