One of the highlights of my domestic life is laundry. As odd and boring as perhaps this may sound, I love a chore that doesn’t require rubber gloves and only eats up about fifteen minutes of my life per load. It’s satisfying to see empty laundry baskets on the floor of my closet.

Being that I’ve enjoyed domesticity more consistently this month (thus my distinct lack of blog postings), I recently decided that since Hubby is adorably incapable of taking his dirty laundry to a basket and I’m going to have to go around collecting it daily anyway, I might as well just deposit it in the laundry room instead of our bedroom. Keeping in mind that my laundry room is only accessible by exiting the house, crossing the back patio, and opening another door, I figured that I’d benefit from the extra activity this required (hey, you don’t have to tell me how ridiculous it is to call this exercise…I’m only slightly delusional). After several days of engaging in this new routine, my laundry baskets were full, so this morning I went to wash a load of darks.

Imagine my surprise when I picked up one of Hubby’s undershirts to throw in the wash and two acorns fell to the concrete floor. I found this a bit strange, but when it continued to happen with each additional article of clothing I picked up, I was patently perplexed. By the time I’d emptied the basket into the washing machine, there were probably thirty acorns littering the floor of my laundry room.

Folks, I must first assure you that I don’t own a squirrel. As much as I am known for adopting multitudes of animals, squirrels actually sorta freak me out. So no, I don’t have a pet squirrel trained to hide acorns in dirty laundry. Given my uncertainty around these bushy-tailed rodents, finding these acorns left me a little uncomfortable. Though I have to exit my house to get to my laundry room, it is actually attached to the main house, is roofed, sheet rocked and painted to look like just another room in my house. It has a proper, screened and glass window. The door stays shut as the room is actually heated and air-conditioned like the rest of my house. There are no noticeable holes in the walls or ceiling. I searched for a while for any indication that a squirrel was commuting back and forth between the yard and my laundry room and found none. Still a little perplexed, I started the wash and came back inside.

Needless to say, when I returned an hour later to swap the clothes to the dryer, the acorns had vanished. Apparently my squirrelly friend realized I’d discovered his clever hiding place and scrambled to find a new one. For a moment, I thought I’d imagined the whole thing, until I found an acorn at the bottom of the washing machine. Another hour later, there was one final acorn (nicely cooked, at this point) in the back of the dryer.

I’ve done a more thorough search since finishing up the laundry and still can’t figure out how a squirrel is getting in and out of the laundry room. Quite the mystery. Mom will probably say this is a sign that my entire house has been co-opted by an evil family of rodents. I can only hope that one little rogue (and clearly, magical) squirrel just knew that I needed something to post about and decided to help out. I’m quite good at explaining away any potentially problematic bit of information and sticking my head in the metaphorical sand, so Mom, don’t even bother commenting unless it’s to say that you completely believe in the existence of magical squirrels who hide their acorns in people’s dirty laundry. Thanks for that! 🙂