Do you have stories it's taking a well-earned summer break after nearly a decade of weekly weirdness?

While we regroup and recharge behind the scenes, we're rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes.

And yes, in the words Varney, we'll be back.

These aren't the stories your mother told you.

No, these are the other stories.

Today's episode of The Other Stories is I think my sock puppet hates Me, written by Andy Morris and narrated by Josh Curran.

Bollocks. I think my sock puppet hates me. Max had been trying to dodge this intrusive thought for weeks, but it had become impossible to ignore.

He was slumped on his lumpy bed in the corner of his

crappy flat. Well, it was more of a bed sit than a flat, but it was all he could afford for himself

and mittens. With a defeated sigh, he turned his hand so the tips of his fingers were

facing him. Of course, he couldn't see his fingertips or his

hand because these belonged to mittens, his sock puppet. The red, yellow and green sock with the shiny

plastic eyes and lengths of purple wolfa hair looked back at him, unblinking. Max felt the disappointment

and resentment coming off her in waves.

It was hard to tell when things had first started to go wrong between them. He'd made mittens when

he was at school, and like all men, his sock puppet went everywhere with him. Mittens had been with him

nearly all of his 21 years,

outlasting all his pets and nearly all his friendships. She had accompanied him throughout his

school years and when he went into the sixth form to do his A-levels. They had shared birthdays

and holidays. She'd been there to witness his first kiss,

and she'd been eagerly cheering him on when he lost his virginity to Ginny Tucker.

Max and mittens were inseparable, and that's how things should be. The bond between a man

...