The Family Outing

 

It was a fairly nice morning, so she carried the laundry basket out to the backyard.  She liked hanging the clothes on the line instead of using the electric dryer.  She felt they dried with a certain freshness to them that the drier didn’t provide.

One by one she took a wooden clothespin from the pocket of her apron, and with that familiar squeak, pressed them onto the line, securing each garment in place.  The breeze would take care of the rest.

Having completed one row, she turned to pull the laundry basket over a little closer to the next, that’s when she noticed a rather large racoon standing next to the basket, his front feet on the edge of the basket, as he leaned in to sniff the clothes.

She didn’t want to reach down to pluck a skirt from the basket, as that might startle the thing, but she also didn’t want it jumping in, on top of the clean, damp clothes.  It didn’t appear dirty, but who knew what creepy little bugs were on that thing?

As she tried to scare it away with her words, the clothesline she had just loaded began to bounce.  She looked at the clothes now bouncing up and down and she followed the line with her eyes.  A second racoon was sitting on the top of the clothes pole and testing the line to see if it would hold him.

“No!” she yelled, but the animal didn’t even bother to look up at her.  For some odd reason, it felt it needed to walk across the clothesline.  She couldn’t figure why these things were suddenly so inquisitive about her laundry, and they sure weren’t bothered by her being right there.

The movement of the basket brushed against her leg.  She looked back down just as the third baby racoon was climbing into the clothes basket.  Now, for sure, she knew she couldn’t  snatch the basket up.  The mother would surely fight to protect her young ones.

Maybe it was the scent of the detergent that had attracted them.  Nothing like this had happened before.  She knew for sure that now she would have to wash them all over again, and that was not something she was looking forward to.  Behind her she could hear a car coming down the dirt road.  All her neighbors knew to drive slowly whenever they noticed laundry out on the line, in order to keep the dust down.

Mrs. Gregory slowed to a stop and stared at her neighbor surrounded by racoons.  Her mouth hung open.  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  They were in her laundry basket, climbing along the line and sitting on top of the clothes pole.  She rolled her window down and yelled, “You really should get an electric drier, my dear.” then rolled her window back up and drove off down the road.