Something Wicked This Way Comes..

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So I'm minding my own business, and I hear a strange sound coming from the opposite end of the house.

It's crinkling, rattling type sound, sort of like if someone were playing with a couple of large empty potato chip bags.

I think, "Grrrrr, must be another mouse." I tip-toe my way across the floor,





wishing my bare feet didn't make a sticking noise every time I lifted them up to take another step.

The crinkling goes on. I attempt to take my steps during the loudest crinkling sounds.





I get all the way to the utility room where the back door is and the washer and dryer. The sound is really loud now. And coming from somewhere around the dryer.





Whatever this is, it sure sounds big. Could a possum or somethimg somehow have darted in when I went out the back door?

I slowly and quietly unload the junk from the top of the dryer... a laundry basket, a small bucket of paint thinner, which always makes the room reek (why haven't I gotten rid of that, anyhow?), a toolbox, rattling is still going crazy back there, a little hex wrench, the detergent bucket....

You have to have a clear floor in every direction. You never know which way a creature may choose to run across your body as it tries to escape, so you want to be prepared for every eventuality.

I am finally prepared. I climb over the top of the dryer and peer behind, expecting to see an opossum or small raccoon. Instead I see nothing. But the problem is clear.





There is something in my dryer vent hose.

How did it get in there? Inside? Outside? In between?

I decide to do the only logical thing. Turn on the dryer and make the new digs more like the Sahara Desert than a nice vacation spot from the rain.

.....mad scrambling.... good... it's not happy.... more scrambling..... quiet... it's thinking about its options....

.... more scrambling....

BAM!

Silence.

Silence from the scrambling, and even worse, deathly silence from my dryer! Not good.

Now its my turn to think. I cautiously peek inside the door, nothing visible in the barrel. I try to turn on the dryer. Won't come on. I try to move the barrel. It's not free moving like it should be.

So. I can take on yet another project - which I love to do and learn by - but add yet one more stress to my already overly full life and schedule. Or I can call a hero. Yes. That's it. I need a HERO!

Michael is off with friends today. My dad is sick. So I call a repair man. He's going to be here in a few minutes.

I hope it's not too messy.

~Faith

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