I know what you're thinking: who makes a big deal about missing socks, right? Trust me, if you'd been in my shoes (pun absolutely intended), you would've done the same thing.

Because when you're a single dad trying to keep it together, sometimes the smallest things can drive you completely up the wall.

It started with just one sock. A plain black one, nothing special. I assumed it got eaten by the dryer, like socks tend to do.

But then another disappeared the next week. And another.

I don't know about you, but after the fifth missing sock, even the most rational person would start getting suspicious.

"Dylan?" I called out one morning, rifling through the laundry basket for what felt like the hundredth time. "Have you seen my other gray sock?"

My seven-year-old son barely looked up from his cereal. "No, Dad. Maybe it's playing hide and seek?"

Something in his voice made me pause. Dylan had always been a terrible liar, just like his mother was. Sarah could never keep a straight face when trying to surprise me, and Dylan had inherited that same tell — a slight quiver in his voice that gave everything away.

"Are you sure about that, buddy?" I pressed, studying his face.

He shrugged, suddenly very interested in his Cheerios. "Maybe check under the couch?"

I did check under the couch, and everywhere else. Behind the washing machine. In every drawer, basket, and bin in our house. I found $5 in spare change and some missing Lego blocks, but no socks.

The mystery of the vanishing socks was driving me crazy. I even started marking pairs with little dots to make sure I wasn't imagining things.

You're probably wondering why I didn't just buy new socks. Maybe that would have been the sensible thing to do, but most of the missing socks were novelty socks my wife had given me.

I tried wearing my smiling banana sock with the dancing cat sock, but it just didn't work. Call me sentimental, but the thought of never being able to wear the silly socks my wife gave me again hurt my heart.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered to myself one evening, staring at a pile of perfectly good socks without matches.

That's when I remembered the old nanny cam we'd used when Dylan was a baby. It took some digging, but I found it in the garage, buried under a box of Sarah's old things.

My heart clenched a bit when I saw her handwriting on the box ("Baby's First Year"). Funny how grief sneaks up on you in the smallest moments, isn't it? But I had a sock thief to catch, and I wasn't about to let memories derail my investigation.

Setting up the camera in the laundry room felt silly, but I was beyond caring. I deliberately hung up three pairs of freshly washed socks and waited.

The things we do as parents, I swear. If someone had told me five years ago, I'd be setting up surveillance to catch a sock thief, I would've laughed them out of the room.

The next morning, I nearly spilled my coffee in my rush to check the footage. What I saw made my jaw drop. There was Dylan, tiptoeing into the laundry room well before sunrise, handpicking one sock from each pair and stuffing them into his backpack.

"What in the world?" I whispered to myself.

Now, here's where I had to make a decision. The rational thing would have been to confront Dylan right there and then. But something held me back.

Maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was instinct, but I wanted to see where this weird sock saga would lead.

I set a trap for my sock-stealing son so I could discover what he was doing with all my socks.