Aug

23

3 chipmunks and a mouse

Filed Under Writing 

Three chipmunks and a mouse walk into a dryer vent.

It sounds like a joke, right? Like a Henny Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield politically incorrect tale that will make you laugh, but also cringe. This story is definitely cringe-worthy.

As they have for the past several years, my parents went to Florida for four months this winter. This was also my first winter in my new apartment. Ever the dutiful daughter, I agreed to travel 30 miles to their house each Saturday to water the plants and keep a general eye on the place. In exchange, I got to do my laundry for free.

So March rolls around and I decide to go visit a friend after putting a load in the dryer. I return an hour later to find the dryer stalled at 10 minutes left, and my clothes warm, but damp.

How odd.

I press the start button. There’s a whirr, then nothing. Crap. I call Dad in Florida to report the bad news. He has me unplug the dryer, check the lint filter, plug the dryer back in, check the lint filter … you get the idea. Again: whirr, then silence. Crap.

OK, so I can’t use the dryer. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

Five weeks later, Mom and Dad are home and Mom calls. Dad’s discovered the cause of the dryer malfunction. There are three dead chipmunks and one dead mouse lodged in the duct leading from the dryer to the outside. One chipmunk is stuck in the vent in the back of the dryer.

“Didn’t you smell anything?” Mom asks.

Well … not really. There was an odd mildewy odor, nothing fetid. Nothing that suggested that something had died.

“It was horrible,” Mom says. Apparently, Dad scrubbed out the infected area three times with Lysol and two times with bleach. The cellar stunk of dead rodent.

Ewww. But also, really funny. I mean, c’mon … it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke from the 1960s. Three chipmunks and a mouse walk into a dryer vent. The mouse says to one of the chipmunks, “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?” I told my friend, Mary, that I’d murdered Alvin and the Chipmunks and their roadie, Mickey Mouse. I had to joke about it, because if I didn’t, I’d have to think about the poor little creatures trapped and terrified and cooking to death.

No. No. No. No. No. I refuse to do that to myself, so I will always remember stupid chipmunks and bad jokes. And be grateful Dad put a grate over the exhaust vent.

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