It hurts me to say it, but the Old School Mate was a step ahead of me when it came to seeing the possibilities for the over-shoe sock.
I am not sure she is knitting up a storm as we speak, but I wouldn't be surprised.
I put it down to the fact she lives in a slightly warmer part of the country, and her brain does not become frozen as mine is wont to do at this time of year.
The OSM was quick to laud the work of the University of Otago researchers (with the help of some fall guys) whose recently published study showed the value of wearing the over-shoe sock when negotiating ice.
She could see the possibility of the Otago District Health Board subsidising socks if a cost/benefit analysis showed it could be a worthwhile preventive measure for oldies likely to fall in frosty conditions, snap a limb or two and clog up the orthopaedic ward.
We differ slightly on that one. I see it more as a role for ACC which should be doing much more to promote safe use of socks - at all times. ( I like to imagine my view on this has nothing to do with the fact my ribs still twinge at the memory of my Boxing Day stairs encounter in my Christmas socks, but I could be deluded.)
As farmers' daughters, we could both see the benefit in using home-grown fibres for the socks.
It is my understanding the research group chose large and cheap when they bought their socks, which I assume meant natural fibres and New Zealand-made were nowhere to be seen, but that should not deter us.
If anyone is paying for sensible research and development projects these days, they could give us a few bucks to knit prototypes in different fibre combinations. I expect there would need to be some nylon in there to make them longer-lasting, but I am ready to be proved wrong.
It is not clear what the best form of production would be. My plan to teach bad boys to knit in the over-hyped boot camps has yet to be embraced by the authorities, and I guess it is too late to think that any good could come of night classes, since the Government would have us believe people are wasting their evenings and the taxpayers' money on frippery such as Moroccan cooking and pilates.
It's a pity really - we might have been able to teach people not only how to knit, but how to spin their own fibres, whittle their own knitting needles and run a small business. (Morale-boosting singing sessions involving classics such as John Denver's Thank God I'm a Country Boy while doing pilates and Moroccan cooking would have been optional, but I guess they would have been frowned on too.)
Another possibility would be for school pupils to organise sock production as a Young Enterprise project. Having ruffled feathers over the stadium saga, they could stir up everyone again by having "Parking Mad?" on one sock and on the other "Wear meters ahead".
That would send everyone into a spin about the standard of spelling in schools and give city councillors another chance to feel put upon and perhaps exhibit a collective lack of a sense of humour. The kids could get even more attention if they popped in several badly placed apostrophes.
As a marketing ploy Shrek could be dragged out of retirement and gently lowered from a grit truck to trot down Stuart Street in a specially designed set of hoof socks.
It is possible John Key, keen to avert attention from his much maligned Job Summit (or Job Plummet), has stolen the march on us, belatedly recognising the role of the enterprising woman.
Reading between the exclamation marks in the resignation address of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, it seems she may be lured over here for international promotion of the over-shoe sock.
It might cost a few bob, of course, but since my email to his think-tankers back in March about Job Summit expenses remains unanswered, I am assuming mere money is irrelevant when the PM thinks things are important.
He could offer her a complete new wardrobe from New Zealand designers, not just the socks, and the whole family could come out for a bit of mid-winter rest and recreation.
I know this has yet to hit the headlines, or even the David Letterman show, but read her address online and you will realise anything is possible.
She gives it away in the last line when she quotes General MacArthur saying "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."
If they are not the words of a woman who is seriously considering a slippery slope, I'll eat my socks.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
