When teaching middle school students, there are a some words you do not utter during instruction unless you want to lose complete control. Sperm. I heard you giggle from here. Grow up! Some words are sure-fire gigglers and I’ve even been known to change my lesson plans after dragging myself out of bed in the morning and realizing that I was NOT up to saying sperm today. Then there are those words that you never expected to be giggle-getters but, had you read the pubescent memo, you should have known better. Cookie. See, nothing. I had one math class that had a different interpretation of the question, “What would happen if Gloria gave James her cookie?” Oh Grow up! Cookies became off limits for the whole rest of the year. Do you know how hard it is to teach math without cookies?
What does this have to do with Booby Socks you ask? I was briefly wondering that myself. A few months ago I was having lunch with a fellow teacher and knitter who asked me (in a loud and very clear voice) if I had purchased a Booby Sock kit yet. Did I mention this lunch was being held at an in-service with dozens of other teachers? Go ahead: try it. Move to the center of a large group of people and say, “Booby Sock” and see what happens. Apparently middle school children are not the only ones who respond to words seemingly out of context. A few older teachers frowned at the B word. The male teachers were suddenly very interested in knitting socks. And me, I just shook my head to clear the images of just what the heck a booby sock might look like. Unfortunatly, while doing so I missed most of the explanation. ( I finally settled on the image of two socks just dangling off your chest. After all, there’s not much more material they can eliminate from bikini tops. Cut the strings off and you’re left with booby socks.)
Not being able to admit I missed the explanation of the now infamous knitted item, I was forced to go home and google the term. (I couldn’t search at school since the filtering software frowned on the search criteria.) Amazingly, the advent of the Booby Sock seems to be a well kept secret. So I called the local craft center. It seems asking if you carry Booby Socks is equivelant to asking if you have Prince Albert in a can.
I did finally locate said kit and discovered that the socks go on your feet. Who would have guessed. The sock pattern looked rather fun to knit (NOTE to SELF: looked and is are two different things) and who could pass up the opportunity to knit a toe with a nipple while contributing to Breast Cancer research. I could never have anticipated the added benefit of seeing the look on your auto mechanics face while explaining what you are knitting. I think the brakes took so long to fix because they were hoping I’d try them on 
