The poor orphaned vole

Once upon a time there was a vole in my laundry room. Alas, it was unable to tell us its tale so we may never know exactly how or why it ended up in my laundry room. But let me surmise...

The vole, poor little soul, was an orphan. Hearing that the Mrs. of that barn-looking house on the curve had a soft spot for orphans, he decided to give it a try. One day when the garage door was open, he made a run for it and made it. Hours later the big garage door slid down and shut and he realized that the first step had been accomplished. A day or two later, he noticed a child enter the garage from the next room. It appeared to be a small room, a laundry room possibly. To his great delight, that child neglected to shut the door into that room. Under cover of darkness, and with an entrance so easily provided to him, he entered the room which did, indeed turn out to be a laundry room. He enjoyed the warmth of this room for a few days while figuring out how to get up the few steps into the next room of the house. Suddenly, the door at the top of those steps opened and a young but beautiful girl dumped a whole load of laundry onto the floor of the laundry room. He hid behind the washer just in time but  realized that if he didn't make it into the next room by nightfall, the bottom of this pile would make for a cozy place to sleep the night away. Unfortunately, for him, the members of this household do not seem to notice a pile of laundry on the floor and tend to step right on the pile as they go back and forth through the laundry room.

As I mentioned earlier, all points in that last paragraph are but conjecture since the poor vole is decidedly deceased and unable to give us an accurate account. I, however, happened upon the scene at this point and can provide all sorts of sordid details.

Saturday morning, laundry day, I was up bright and early to start on this awesome task. Two washers were complete and the clothes were ready to be taken outside. I was working on getting that third load into the washer when my handful of clothes actually found that I had reached the bottom of the pile. I could see floor! But then I spotted a brown mass of something. Knowing that my children like to collect everything in the room along with the laundry (this is clearly much easier than separating trash from toys from doll clothes from actual laundry), dump it on the floor of the laundry room (rather than in the baskets provided although admittedly, they are often overflowing even when used), and let me sort through it all, my immediate thought was that it was something that I needed to deposit in the trash. I bent down to pick it up and thought,

Are those legs?

No, can't be legs. I bent down again.

Is that a tail?

Definitely a tail.

No, can't be a tail.

Isaaaaaaaaaaaaacccccccc, can you come here a minute, please? What does that look like to you? Would you concur that it was once a living thing?

He concurred. I turned off the light, shut the door, and halted my laundry endeavors for the time being.

The Good Doctor disposed of the poor orphaned creature when he came home.

If only the vole had just shown up at the door and asked for a home instead of sneaking in.

Moral of the story: God gave you a mouth, use it.

Alternate moral of the story: Never step on a pile of dirty laundry.