Brotherhood of socks

In the mood for something completely trivial? When I am looking for one sock from a pair of socks, I ask where is the sock's brother or little brother. This is something I picked up from mum since I was a child. "Have you seen his brother", "does this one have a brother", "here's the brother", etc. I don't know if it is a lost Québec expression or a family one, but I never heard anyone use it outside my family. Maybe my mother invented it because she only had boys. And I use it often, since I easily lose socks. The expression used to amuse my wife a lot, until she started using it too. She told her friend (the mother of the Tickler) about it, who thought it was so good that she decided that she was going to use it. So there you have it. There is nothing to say to it, except that it is a fun expression. Please feel free to refer to your socks as brothers, but don't forget to mention where you learned it first. I'd like a bit of credit.