There’s a pants shortage in my house.

One day, it seemed like there were plenty of trousers to go around.

The next day, no amount of rifling through the laundry baskets and digging through the dresser drawers could turn up any pants for my children.

We have a similar problem with socks. I long ago gave up on forcing the kids to wear matching socks every day. They don’t even seem to have any matching socks. Instead, they have a basket full of unmated, clean socks — no two of which appear to be the same size, color or style — from which they choose each day.

Laziness? Apathy? Poor laundry skills? Probably all of the above are responsible for the sock issue. But in the lives of busy working families, something’s got to give, and for us, it was matched socks.

(Note to those who can hold everything — including pairs of socks — together despite busy work schedules, kid sports schedules, housework, homework and yard work: Congratulations! You are a superhero. I’m not. Socks are my kryptonite.)

My husband blames the sock situation on bad fairies who spirit random socks away in the night. The same perpetrator may be at fault in the pants mystery, my husband says.

But I have my doubts. In fact, I think there are a number of culprits at fault, and none of them are laundry fairies.

Culprit No. 1: Growth.

My oldest son has grown at least two pants sizes since September. I say “at least” two sizes because pants manufacturers appear to assign sizes to garments at random. On any given day, my son could be wearing one of three different sizes of pants, according to their labels, even though they are all roughly the same actual size.

Regardless, his fourth-grade growth spurt meant he outgrew his previous pants wardrobe, and his new one — a mix of new and hand-me-down britches — is apparently not large enough to meet his needs.

Culprit No. 2: Wear.

My children seem incapable of wearing a pair of pants more than a few times without ripping out the knees. Or popping off a button. Or staining them with something indelible, like pomegranate or Sharpie. It seems like every time we fold clothes, I’m tossing another pair of pants in the “mend” pile (which never gets mended, by the way) or the “donate” box. A few go straight to the trash.

So even though it seems like we have plenty of pants, if I calculate the attrition of trousers due to wear and tear (emphasis on the tear), our inventories are probably a lot lower than I remember.

Culprit No. 3: Mystery vortex.

This is my husband’s pet theory, and I desperately want to believe it. If it were true, it would explain not only the missing pants, but also the lack of matched socks, the missing toy parts and maybe even that extra house key I misplaced six months ago that’s yet to turn up.

The vortex theory holds that a rift in the space-time continuum exists in our laundry room (with another possible portal in the boys’ bedroom). Said vortex routinely sucks items from our humble dimension into another plane of existence, rendering them lost forever.

What’s so very attractive about this theory is its blamelessness. If an interdimensional rift did exist, then it’s not just my bad housekeeping, low sock standards and poor organization skills at fault for the pants shortage and every other domestic failure of a lost-item nature.

Unfortunately, the mystery vortex theory sounds vaguely like “the dog ate my homework.” I don’t think anyone will buy it, least of all my boys’ school teachers.

I’m pretty sure they’re going to insist that my kids wear pants.