Chick Wit Archives – Lisa Scottoline

The Tao of Eve

May 18, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I love sleeping with dogs.

But sleeping with a puppy is a different matter.

Let me explain.

You may know that I recently added a new member to my family, namely Eve, who is now a seven-month-old cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She joins my other two Cavaliers, Boone and Kit, who are almost fourteen now and differ on their opinion of her.

Boone loves Eve.

Kit wishes her dead.

I’m hoping he comes around.

Spoiler alert: He’s not going to.

But so far he’s not trying to kill her.

And Kit has his adorable moments with Eve. Like this morning, I took them out for a walk, and he peed on her leg.

By the way, it was raining.

So I actually got to watch a demonstration of “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

Which is the perfect description of my second marriage.

This is only one of the many great things about dogs.

In any event, I love sleeping with Eve, but she’s very busy all night long.

At this point you’re wondering why I don’t put her in a crate.

Because I tried to in the beginning, but she cried and I’m a big softie.

Luckily she’s never peed on the bed and told me it was raining, but she is an insanely restless sleeper.

First, she loved to bring her toys on the bed and squeak them most of the night.

I took away the squeaky ones, and she started playing with the ball, rolling it around the cover, then on my body.

I took away the ball, and she would jump off the bed and find my socks on the floor, bring them up, and drop them on my face.

Then I picked up all my socks and took away all the toys and she found a way to amuse herself, running up and down the ramp that leads to the bed.

I couldn’t take that away because I already felt heartless.

Plus how else do you get a dog onto a bed?

Where she will disrupt your sleep.

Obviously, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The sensible thing to do would be to put the dog in a crate and a moat around the bed.

But not all decisions are sensible.

That’s why God made divorce.

Meanwhile every single piece of furniture in my house has either a ramp or a set of little wooden stairs, but Eve loves to chews wood, so she makes a meal of those stairs.

She’s on an all-wood diet.

She eats doors and baseboards, and now my place looks like I live with a woodchuck.

Now you’re probably asking, why don’t you spray the wood with that stuff called Bitter Apple, which is supposed to make dogs not chew wood?

The answer is, I do, and Eve thinks it improves the taste of wood.

It’s the dressing on her wood salad.

She would drink Bitter Apple if I let her.

And when she’s not eating wood, she’s running around outside, finding a rock, and chewing that, too.

In the beginning, I started taking the rocks from her and putting them on a pile on the table. Now the table holds a pyramid of rocks, like oranges at the grocery store.

I should sell rocks.

Or I could spray them with Bitter Apple, then Eve would have a rock casserole.

I took her to puppy kindergarten and puppy elementary school, and next week we start puppy middle school.

After that, puppy Harvard.

She learned all her lessons, including Leave It, which I now use forty-five times a day, when she finds a sock, chews wood, or eats a rock.

And she Leaves It.

Until she finds something else.

This is all by way of saying, I love this puppy.

She’s completely adorable, despite all the puppy things she does.

Or maybe because of them.

She’s simply an incredibly affectionate ball of fluff.

When she finally settles down to sleep at my side, she has an adorable snore.

She loves to snuggle and kiss, which is a job requirement for any animal I live with.

Actually she’s a Make-out Queen, but I won’t elaborate.

She loves people, other dogs, and fun in general.

All the time, every minute.

Even at night, but that’s okay.

Life is to be savored, all the time.

And that’s what Eve reminds me.

Column Classic: Mommy’s Day Out

May 10, 2025

by Francesca Serritella

The last time my mom came to visit, I lost her.

It was like that movie Baby’s Day Out, except with my parent. I turned my back for one second, and the little rascal got away from me.

I imagined her crawling along an I-beam at some high-rise construction site.

But she’s afraid of heights, so more likely she’d be in Times Square, telling The Naked Cowboy he isn’t dressed warmly enough.

It started with tickets to see the new Larry David play. My mom checked that she had the tickets for the third or fourth time.

“It says, ‘late arrivals will not be seated,’” she read, for my benefit. My mom is early to everything. We left with an hour to spare.

And yet, we found ourselves in a cab crawling up Sixth Avenue for a half-hour with fifteen blocks to go. I checked our route on my smartphone; the driving estimate to get to the theater was fifteen minutes, the walking was only ten.

“I think we should get out,” I said.

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Column Classic: The Mothership

May 4, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m a terrible negotiator. I’m too emotional, and I can’t pretend I don’t want something I really want.

Like George Clooney.

But today we’re talking cars, and this is the tale of my first attempt at negotiating.

To begin, I have an older car that I take great care of, and it’s aged better than I have, sailing past 100,000 miles without estrogen replacement.

But around 102,000 miles, things started to go wrong, and flaxseed wasn’t helping. I knew I’d be driving long distances on book tour, and I started to worry. I called up my genius assistant Laura to ask her advice, as I do before I make any important decision, like what to eat for lunch.

I asked her, “Laura, do you think I need a new car?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“But it’s paid off, and I love it.” And I do. It’s a big white sedan called The Mothership.

“I know, but you have to be safe. What if it breaks down on tour?”

“That won’t happen.”

“Except it has. Twice.”

An excellent point. One time, The Mothership died on the way to a bookstore in Connecticut, requiring the bookseller to pick me up at a truck-stop on 1-95. I bet that never happened to James Patterson.

So I needed a new car, and since I love my dealership, I went there. I thought they loved me, too, which they did, except when it came to the bottom line. They gave me a good deal on a new SUV, but a rock-bottom price on trading in The Mothership.

I asked, “How can you do that to her? I mean, me?”

I told you I get too emotional.

And I added, “Plus you’re supposed to love me.”

But they don’t. They run a business, and it’s not the love business. However, it’s my secret philosophy that all business is the love business, so I got angry. They had taken care of The Mothership for the past ten years, at top dollar, and it was worth so much more.

Guess what I did.

I walked out.

I took my business elsewhere. That very day, I called up another dealership, who said, come on over, we love you, too. In fact, we love you so much that we’ll give you a better deal on your trade-in. And they did, after inspecting The Mothership and calling her “the cleanest 100,000-mile car they had ever seen,” which we are.

I mean, it is.

But just when I was about to say yes, my old dealership called and told me that they still loved me. I told them I was already rebounding with my new dealership, but they said they’d top the offer on The Mothership, and after much back-and-forth, I went back to my old dealership, like ex sex.

But long story short, the day came when I was supposed to pick up my new SUV, and I felt unaccountably sad. I took final pictures of The Mothership. I stalled leaving the house. On the drive to the dealer, I called daughter Francesca and asked her, “Wanna say good-bye to the car?”

“Mom? You don’t sound happy.”

“I’m not. I love this car.”

“Aww, it’s okay. It’s probably not the car, anyway. It’s that you have such great memories in the car.”

I considered this for a minute. “No, it’s the car.”

By the time I reached the dealership, I was crying full-bore, snot included.

My sales guy came over, and when he saw me, his smile faded. “What’s the matter?”

“I love my car. I don’t want to give it up.”

“So keep it,” he said, which was the first time it even occurred to me. I know it sounds dumb, but it simply never entered my mind. I’d never bought a car without trading one in.

“But what about the money?”

“We’re only offering you a fraction of what the car’s worth. If I were you, I’d keep it.”

“But I’m only one person. Why do I need two cars?”

“They’re two different cars. The old one’s a sedan, and the new one’s an SUV.”

I wiped my eyes. “You mean, like shoes? This is the dressy pair?”

He looked nonplussed. “Uh, right.”

“Really?” My heart leapt with happiness. I decided to keep The Mothership. It’s strappy sandals on wheels, if you follow.

Thus ended my first attempt at hardball negotiations, which backfired. Having bargained for the best price on a trade-in, I couldn’t bring myself to trade anything in.

Because I love it.

It sits in my garage, aging happily.

Soon we’ll both be antique.

Priceless.

Happy Mother’s Day

April 27, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

Mother’s Day is almost here.

I’m already lactating.

Why?

Because I’m having a mommy-type moment that I wanted to share with you. Not only because it’s a cool thing that’s happening to me, but because it’s a little reminder that wonderful things can happen in a woman’s lifetime.

We begin way back when Daughter Francesca was born, and I quit my job as a lawyer because I really enjoyed being home with her. Lawyering didn’t work for me part time, and the months after her birth made me realize that raising her was simply the most important, and fun, thing I could do.

This all sounds great until you realize I was getting divorced and had zero money. So I decided to be a writer, and then followed five years living on credit cards while writing and getting rejected.

But meanwhile I got to stay home with Francesca, and I remember those early days so well, because the lack of money was beside the point. I was doing something I loved, being with this curly-haired, blue-eyed, baby, and watching her grow.

I remember after I’d put her down at night, she’d be in her crib, talking away.

I would stand outside her bedroom, listening, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. She was just yakking up a storm, in an extremely animated way.

This would last for hours.

So one day, when she was about four years old, I asked her, “Who are you talking to in your room at night?”

And she answered, “I’m telling myself my stories.”

Fast-forward a couple of decades later, when she actually becomes an author, and this summer, something remarkable is happening. Namely, my storyteller daughter has a novel coming out in August, entitled Full Bloom.

Plus I have a novel coming out in July, entitled The Unraveling of Julia.

This is a harmonic convergence for our tiny two-person family.

This summer, mother and daughter will be blooming and unraveling together.

You can pre-order our books now, and we’d be delighted if you would!

We’re even doing events together, and I can only imagine how proud my mother would be. She would curse with happiness, her highest form of self-expression.

For what it’s worth, I never pushed Francesca to be an author.

I pushed her to become a veterinarian.

I need a vet very badly.

Nor do I take any credit for her becoming an author, because the best storyteller in our family was Mother Mary. She could turn anything into a story, and she knew to keep it short, punchy and funny, just like her.

The day of her funeral, there was such a heavy rainstorm that my entrance hall flooded for the first and the last time ever. Francesca was sure it was a sign from her, and I agree.

Somehow, I know that my mother will show up at one of our signings this summer, heckle us, and/or do something vaguely obscene.

I can’t wait.

It reminds me of the saying that everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright yet, then it’s not the end.

Well, this might be the end because everything’s alright.

And this author’s getting her own happy ending.

Thanks, Mom.

And thanks, Francesca

Happy Mother’s Day!

Column Classic: Mother Mary Grounds 4000 Flights

April 20, 2025

by Lisa Scottoline

A column classic in honor of Mother Mary, who passed eleven years ago, but whose memory lives on. Thanks to all of you who continue to celebrate her and read about her.

I believe in science.

Except when it comes to Mother Mary.

I always think of her this time of year, because she passed away 5 years ago, on Palm Sunday.

Yes, I’m aware that the date of Palm Sunday moves, so that it’s not the actual day she passed, which was April 13. But it’s so Mother Mary to remember her on the holiday, and I’ll explain why.

She was only 4’11”, but her personality was ten times her size.

I love talking about her, which I just did, on book tour. I’m supposed to talk about my new book, Someone Knows, but I always end up telling funny stories about her, and oddly, they all involve the weather.

I tell the story about how she was the only person in South Florida who felt an earthquake that had occurred in Tampa, a fact proved by a call she had made to the Miami Herald to report same. When the TV newsvan went to her house, they called her Earthquake Mary.

Which she loved.

I tell a story about how I made her fly north to get out of the path of a hurricane, and when she was interviewed about it at the airport, she said, “I’m not afraid of a hurricane, I am a hurricane.”

I tell a story about the day of her memorial service, when it rained so hard that my entrance hall flooded, which has never happened before or since.

And then this Palm Sunday, she sent me another weather-related sign.

I was sitting on a plane in St. Louis and heading for Chicago, when we heard that there was a sudden snowstorm blowing into Chicago.

In the middle of April.

I know it snows a lot in Chicago, but not that much in April, and this storm was unexpected. My flight and others were delayed because the Chicago airport was putting a ground hold on all flights, so we sat on the plane and waited.

And waited.

It turned out that 4000 flights were canceled that day, and mine was one of them.

Unfortunately, I missed my book signing in Chicago.

My apologies.

And I thought of my mother, which is when I wondered if, in fact, that was what she’d wanted all along.

Mother Mary was the youngest of nineteen children, so we can guess she didn’t get much attention. Even now, I think she’s saying, Look at me.

Think of me.

Remember me.

Of course, I need no reminder, nor do you, to remember those you loved and lost.

Holidays are bittersweet for those who have lost people on or around them, but there’s a part of me that thinks Mother Mary likes being remembered on Palm Sunday.

An extraordinary day for an extraordinary woman.

She loved whenever Francesca and I wrote about her. You may remember when Philadelphia magazine published its Best of Philadelphia awards and gave Chick Wit an award. For Worst of Philadelphia.

Thanks, Philly mag.

I’m still laughing.

Last.

Mother Mary happened to be visiting when I got that award and she was very disappointed.

Because it didn’t mention her.

Thanks to all of you who like the stories about her. Many of you have been to my house for our Big Book Club Party and were as loving to her as if she were your own mother.

With profanity added.

Mother Mary bathed in your affection and talked about you readers all the time. You gave her a gift that she didn’t even know she needed.

A spotlight.

In my opinion, every mother deserves one.

Mother’s Day may be around the corner, but honestly, I don’t think we give mothers the credit they deserve.

They were the invisible force of nature behind all of us, and if we were lucky, it was a fair wind, not an ill one.

I was lucky, and so was my brother Frank.

Mother Mary was the most loving of mothers and adored being a grandmother, too. I love when Francesca writes about her, because though we know how much grandparents adore their grandchildren, it’s not often you get to hear how much a grandchild loves a grandparent.

Even more.

We call Francesca The Grandmother Whisperer, because my mother would do anything if Francesca asked.

But not if I did.

Because Francesca asked, Mother Mary even went to the fireworks on July 4, and you haven’t lived until you’ve sat under an exploding sky with your vaguely combustible mother.

When Mother Mary was in hospice at our house, Francesca was at her side, caring for her, talking with her, and doing my mother’s nails, a loving act made more poignant by its circumstances.

Mother Mary used to joke that when she passed, she wanted a mausoleum.

At least I think it was a joke.

She was proud of herself.

She stood up for herself.

She tried to get the best for herself and her family.

She loved people. She could not walk into an Acme without greeting the produce guys, whom she knew by name.

She struck up conversations with every shopper.

She played peekaboo with every baby.

She made life fun.

If Mother Mary grounded 4000 flights, she had a good laugh over it.

So did I.

Happy Easter, Mom.

We love you.

Column Classic: Shades of Gray

April 13, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

What’s the difference between accepting yourself and giving up?

I’m talking of course, about going gray.

Because that’s what’s happening.

I’ve had glimmers of gray hair before, but it was concentrated on the right and left sides of my head, which gave me a nice Bride-of-Frankenstein look.

But I’ve been working so hard over the winter that I haven’t bothered to get my hair highlighted, and today I noticed that there’s a lot more gray than there used to be.

And you know what?

It doesn’t look terrible.

Also the world did not come to an end.

In fact, nothing happened, one way or the other.

But before we start talking about going gray, we have to talk about going brown. I seem to remember that brown is my natural hair color, but I forget. In any event, sometime in the Jurassic, I started highlighting my hair. It was long enough ago that highlights didn’t require a second mortgage.

But no matter, some women are vain enough to pay anything to look good, and she would be me. I figured my highlights were a cost of doing business. In fact, I named my company Smart Blonde, so highlights were practically a job requirement, if not a uniform.

In fact, maybe highlights are deductible.

Just kidding, IRS.

(I know they’ll really laugh at that one. They have a great sense of humor.)

Anyway, my hair appointment for new highlights is tomorrow, but I’m really wondering if it’s worth it. Not because of the money, or even the time, but because I’m starting to accept the fact that my hair is not only secretly brown, it’s secretly gray.

And so I’m thinking, maybe I should just let it go. Accept that I’m not only going gray, but I’m going brown, which I used to think was worse. And that maybe I should just accept myself as I am.

Or, in other words, give up.

Now, before I start getting nasty letters, let me just say that I love silvery gray hair on people. I know women who look terrific with all-over gray hair, but mine isn’t all-over yet. It’s coming only in patches, which looks like somebody spilled Clorox on my head.

You know you’re in trouble when your hair matches your laundry.

Also, my gray hair is growing in stiff and oddly straight, so it looks like it’s raising its hand.

But that might be my imagination.

And before you weigh in on this question, let me add the following:

I’m also deciding whether to start wearing my glasses, instead of contacts. Yes, if you check out the sparkly-eyed picture of me on the book, you’ll see me in contacts. Actually, I took them out right after the photo, because they’re annoying. Fast forward to being middle-aged, where any time you’re wearing your contacts, you have to wear your reading glasses, and so one way or the other, glasses are going to get you.

And I’m starting to think that’s okay, too. In other words, I may be accepting myself for the myopic beastie that I am.

Which is good.

Or I may merely be getting so lazy that I cannot be bothered to look my best.

Which is not so good.

Because in addition to gray hair and nearsightedness, I also accept that I don’t have the answers to many things. For example, I just drove home from NYC and I don’t know the difference between the EZ-Pass lane and the Express EZ-Pass lane.

Life isn’t always EZ.

Column Classic: Perking Up

April 6, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

Mommy has a new wish.

Besides Bradley Cooper.

We’re talking coffee.

And I’m on a quest.

I know, some people climb Everest.

Others cure cancer.

But all I want is a delicious cup of coffee that I can make myself, at home.

Is that so much to ask?

Evidently.

Right out front, I have to confess that I love Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

Sometimes I’ll have Starbucks and other times Wawa, but my coffee soulmate is Dunkin’.

We’ve been together longer than either of my marriages combined.

Daughter Francesca likes to tell the story of the time we were watching television and a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial came on, and I whispered, “I love you, Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Okay, that’s embarrassing enough.

But then Francesca tweeted that to Dunkin’ Donuts, and Dunkin’ Donuts tweeted back:

“We love you too, Lisa!”

OMG!!!!!

Anyway, you get the idea.

So I stop by Dunkin’ Donuts whenever I can and I also pick up a lottery ticket. When I lose the lottery, at least I’ve had a great cup of coffee, which makes me almost as happy.

You’re supposed to be able to make Dunkin’ Donuts at home, and I have a Keurig coffeemaker, so I bought the Dunkin’ Donuts K-Cups and did the whole Keurig thing, but it wasn’t the same as the real thing.

And unfortunately, I developed almost a superstitious belief that a cup of great coffee is essential to my writing process. I’m not the first writer to believe that a beverage is essential to great fiction. Ernest Hemingway had booze, but I have caffeine. And when my good luck charm is on shaky ground, I fear my books will start to suck, and Mrs. Bradley Cooper can’t have that.

So I decided that I would give up on making Dunkin’ Donuts at home and try different types of coffee. I understand this is called being flexible, but it’s not something that comes easily to me.

Nor should it.

One of the great things about being single is that you never have to compromise anything, and I wasn’t looking forward to compromising my one and only vice.

Nevertheless, I decided I should go back to basics, namely percolated coffee. I admit this was probably nostalgia-driven, because I remember the days when Mother Mary perked coffee on the stovetop, brewing Maxwell House from a can, but I couldn’t find a stovetop percolator and had to settle for a plug-in, and I thought I could beat Maxwell House, so I got myself to the grocery store, where I stood before a dizzying array of types of coffee, coming from everywhere around the globe, including Africa, Arabia, and the Pacific.

This was coffee with frequent-flier mileage.

Likewise there were different kinds of roasts – light, dark, French, Italian, and Extra Dark French, which sounded vaguely racist.

I went with medium Italian, because that’s basically what I am.

Then I had to choose the “body” of the coffee, which evidently meant “the weight of the coffee on your tongue.”

Everywhere you look, body issues.

Again I chose the light-to-medium bodied, ground it at the store, brought it home, perked it, and it sucked. I persevered for another week, but I couldn’t do it. I decided to throw out the baby with the coffee water and went back further to my roots to buy a little Italian Bialetti espresso maker, perked on the stovetop. But that meant I had to go back to the grocery store and start all over again, since the new coffeemaker required the moka grind, which is not even a word.

I brought the coffee home, perked it, and took a sip.

It sucked, too.

Or maybe I suck at flexibility.

So now I don’t know what to do.

I’m taking any and all suggestions.

And I have a novel to finish.

Tell me how to make a great cup of coffee.

The future of literature depends upon it.

Also my job. I’ll split the Powerball with you.

Column Classic: Sniff Test

March 30, 2025

by Francesca Serritella

Here is a Column Classic by Francesca. You can find Francesca on Facebook @FrancescaSerritellaauthor or on Instagram @fserritella.

My passion for perfume started long before it became the inspiration for my new novel FULL BLOOM, out August 5th and available for preorder now! Consider this Classic Column “Sniff Test” a certificate of authenticity for my fragrance obsession. Maybe some of you can relate…or I hope it makes you laugh!

Every woman has one department at the shopping mall that calls to them, nay, sings to them, like a choir of angels, radiating a warm, golden light from the top of the escalator.

For me, it’s fragrance.

I’m hypnotized by those glittering little bottles on glass countertops, each one with a secret inside, winking at me from across the room.

I’ve always loved perfume, ever since I was a little girl, when the crystal bottles on my mother’s dresser seemed like magical potions.

And whenever I smelled them on her, I knew she was going somewhere glamorous, mysterious, and as-yet-off-limits to me.

Douleur exquise!

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Mayor Barney

March 23, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I have sad news to report, in the passing of our beloved barn cat, Barney.

He was a beautiful chunky tabbycat with bright green eyes, who wandered onto my backyard one day and decided to stay for ten years, until he passed away.

He died suddenly of kidney failure, and all of us are in heart failure.

I say us because I live on a horse farm, and I don’t run it myself. I have a wonderful assistant, Nan, and a wonderful barn manager, Katie, and all of us loved Barney. Daughter Francesca loved him, too, giving him extra hugs whenever she came home, and my friend Laura adored him and so did my friend Franca, who brought over her grandkids and even they loved him.

I love cats, and amazingly, I still have Vivi, my house cat who is now eighteen years old and going strong, thank God.

The loss of any cat, or any pet, is heartbreaking.

But Barney’s passing made me realize that there’s something unique about a barn cat.

I don’t know how much time you spend in barns or around horses, but the way it sometimes goes is that there’s a random cat that sticks around to catch mice, or maybe he doesn’t stick around but drops in from time to time. And sometimes he’s given a name and sometimes he isn’t. He’s a cat with a job, which is to catch mice, and more often than not, he’s nobody’s cat.

But Barney was everybody’s cat.

That sentiment was expressed by Katie’s husband Sean, and he was exactly right.

Barney got his name because he lived in the barn, but he had a personality as big as any barn. He was unbelievably affectionate, purring on contact, greeting everybody who came over, then following all of us around, including any plumber, electrician, or carpenter.

We had to tell contractors to close the windows and doors on their trucks because Barney would inevitably find his way in, pilfer their lunch or make himself comfy.

He wasn’t a cat, he was a mayor.

We lived and worked in his city.

The only rules he followed were his own.

He hung with the horses and drank from their buckets.

He curled up on their backs and they didn’t even mind.

He caught mice and arranged them like a serial killer.

He left pawprints on all our cars.

He had 243 nicknames and came to all of them.

He was a total character and of course he was a rescue who rescued us.

It was Nan who spotted him first in the yard, and she went to him immediately, noticing that he had infected abscesses around his neck. He wore no tag or identification, but she took him to the vet that day, and we got him antibiotics and plenty of canned food.

He healed in two weeks and never left.

He was always free to roam but never did.

We heated the tack room so he’d be warm year ‘round, and made him a cat door, so in no time it was his palace. He had all the wet food he wanted, plenty of treats, and lots and lots of love.

He faced down any neighboring cats who trespassed on his property.

All of the dogs here were afraid of him, even though they’re bigger.

He protected the farm, us, and democracy in general.

Because he was so much a part of all of our lives, we all feel a hole in our hearts at his loss.

We can still see him walk across the pasture.

We can still hear him purr in our ear.

We can feel him making biscuits on our laps.

We know his meow, strong and insistent, or chirpy and cheery.

Barney was much more than a barn cat.

He was an everywhere everything everybody’s cat.

And we all loved him very very much.

Rest in peace, Barnstable.

Dirty Laundry

March 16, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I think I need to do my laundry more often.

Let me explain.

As you may know, I live alone.

As in, I’m celibate.

But I digress.

Since it’s just me, I don’t generate a lot of laundry.

I barely sweat.

Did I mention I’m celibate?

And also, in winter, who sweats?

Usually, I’m bundled up in fleece tops and sweatpants and from time to time, I even sleep in them.

TMI?

Get ready.

I’m about to air my dirty laundry.

Literally.

In any event, I don’t have a lot of laundry.

And when I do, I just throw it in the washing machine, which I use as a hamper.

When it’s full, then I run it off.

I don’t do it more often because I have a job.

Also, I’m trying to be ecologically sound.

Okay, I’m lazy.

I’m probably doing laundry every two weeks.

So the other day I decided to throw something in the laundry and run off a load, but inside the machine was a visitor.

A mouse.

He looked back up at me, and his expression said, “Took you a while.”

I replied, “EEEK!”

Worse, he was sitting among mouse droppings scattered over my laundry like chocolate jimmies.

Please tell me you know that’s the sprinkles they put on ice cream.

Now you’ll never eat them again.

Anyway, the mouse was alive, but barely.

I got over the initial shock, then I realized I had to get him out of there, so I got a saucepan and put it inside the machine, and trapped him. Then I put the lid on, ran him outside, and set him down in my backyard at the edge of the woods.

There’s a stream back there, too, in case he got thirsty.

And has GPS.

Anyway he scampered away.

I’m guessing he was looking for a lady who has sex.

So, happy ending.

I’m a good person, but a bad housekeeper.

I went upstairs and threw away the laundry that had been in the washing machine.

By the way, there’s a drainpipe that goes into the back of the washing machine and runs from outside the house, so I’m telling myself he got in from the outside.

That’s a better story than he was already in the house.

I can make up anything I want to.

I write fiction.

The whole thing grossed me out, but I consider myself and the mouse lucky.

I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened in the dryer.

All’s well that ends well.

And what’s my lesson?

I’m not doing my laundry more often.

But I’m gonna get a screen on that pipe.

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