How not to shrink your socks in the wash

[Charly]

Don't ever let them do their own laundry, girls - either the washing machine will never recover or, worse, odd socks and small stuff will definitely keep disappearing somewhere between the laundry basket/ the bathroom floor and the fastest route to the washing machine/line or dryer. And you get the blame! [:@] Blokes are never bogged down with trivia like your advice or instructions when they are aiming to get stuff done, they just hurl it all into the drum and hope for the best. I ultimately trained mine by tracking down man-sized  baby Sock Ons, lovely little elasticky things which prevent his socks from ever leaving his feet without some adult assistance!  Once on his feet, he can't get 'em off or leave those socks anywhere.....and in his twilight years, when he is too old to care, I aim to co-ordinate these with colourful Dribble Ons.  He will not only be wonderfully colour co-ordinated - there'll be no more eggy ties or gravy-splashed shirt fronts for me to battle with on laundry day.  Much careful thought and research has gone into keeping socks together in our household: since the eyesight is not what it was, the light is poor and I'd just about had it with black socks that look like navy  - and navy looking like dark brown - and never a matching pair. As part of my research I had to dismiss the radical idea of a friend whose ex-husband actually owns 7 -day socks, i.e. each pair marked Monday,  Tuesday etc., -  Seriously!!!!!  Given to him by his Mummy one Christmas, he not only wears them he actually wears them out in public!!!   But in our household I'm o.k. with the socks now, they don't shrink either and I'm nearly off the medication now. 

I do get a lot of trouble with  coathangers, though, it seems to be a behavioural thing since they get involved in terrible punch-ups, they make a helluva noise and it normally takes two of us to finally separate them. Any advice would be welcome...............[:D]