Airport Baggage Carousel Delivers One Lonely Sock for Nearly 20 Minutes

Travelers arriving at the Boise Airport on Tuesday afternoon expected the usual assortment of overstuffed suitcases, golf clubs and mysteriously dented luggage.

Instead…

…the baggage carousel proudly delivered one single white athletic sock.

Round and round it went.

Again.

And again.

For nearly 20 minutes, bewildered passengers stood around the slowly rotating conveyor belt as the sock completed what witnesses estimated to be somewhere between 40 and 50 laps of the baggage claim area.

“It really started growing on us,” laughed traveler Michelle Donovan. “After about ten minutes people actually started cheering every time it came around.”

Several passengers began pointing at the sock like it was an old friend.

“There it is!”

“There goes Socky!”

“Still hanging in there!”

One father reportedly lifted his young son onto his shoulders so he could get a better view of what had unexpectedly become the airport’s featured attraction.

Airport employees eventually emerged from behind a service door, looked at the carousel…

…looked at the sock…

…shrugged…

…and quietly disappeared again.

A small crowd even began speculating about the sock’s owner.

“Somewhere,” one traveler observed, “there’s a guy opening his suitcase wondering why he packed only one shoe.”

Another passenger suggested the sock had become the airport’s “Employee of the Month” because it had already completed more laps than the average baggage handler walked all afternoon.

One teenager attempted to start a slow clap each time the sock passed.

By lap number 37, several passengers admitted they were more emotionally invested in the sock finally finding its owner than in retrieving their own luggage.

Airport officials later explained that the conveyor had temporarily jammed behind the scenes, delaying the release of the remaining baggage.

As for the sock…

No one claimed it.

Employees eventually removed it from the carousel, where it is expected to spend the remainder of its career in the airport’s ever-growing collection of single gloves, lonely scarves, mystery hats…

…and whatever happened to the other sock.