It was laundry day.
Which meant, by law of cosmic mischief, it was also Existential Crisis Day.
Gregory stood in front of the washing machine, staring at a sock that had clearly entered this dimension from a parallel universe. It was aggressively orange and had a flamingo holding a martini stitched on it.
"I do not own this sock," he informed Maurice.
Maurice nodded solemnly. "You do now. It's the Sock of Unexplained Consequences."
Gregory sighed. "Do I wear it or sacrifice it to the gods of misplaced intentions?"
Maurice shrugged. "Depends. Do you want mild inconvenience or spontaneous character development?"
He wore the sock.
And by the time he stepped outside, the wind had shifted in that peculiar way it always did when the universe was about to drop a lesson disguised as a traffic cone.
Which it did.
Right in front of him.
Painted on the cone: "Slow down. You're not behind. You're just on a scenic route."
