Hungry washing machines

They say that washing machines have an uncanny ability to eat one - ONE - sock from time to time, leaving you with a single solitary sock that is only really good for turning into a glove puppet.

But this has never happened to me. It's a fact that, as inanimate objects, it's not possible for washing machines to feel hunger. So they wouldn't eat a sock, would they? Silly idea.

I have, however, dropped a single sock from a washing line hanging out of the window of a flat on the twelfth floor (of a block of flats in Spain), which was rather annoying. Does that count?