Ode to an Owl~

Tonight I did a month's worth of laundry, loading up several washers, feeding my ten dollar bill into the change machine with chagrin. I cleaned three sets of sheets, twelve pairs of panties, my favorite jeans and, for the first time ever, my long standing stuffed animal, Mr. Owl.

He is small, Mr. Owl, and speckled grey. His furry feathers, once fluffy, have become matted with time’s passing, with each hour spent pressed into my sleeping chest. Lately, my dog Calvin has taken to removing Mr. Owl from my bed and dragging him down onto the floor. Covered in slobber and looking rather bedraggled, it seemed to me that Mr. Owl was finally in need of a bath.

So into the hamper he went with the laundry, down to the basement, and into the wash.

When I transferred my wet clothes, by the armful, to the dryer, I checked him over, ensuring that the rinse cycle hadn’t done him in. He was soggy, but markedly cleaner, smelling less of slobber, sweat and tea rose, and more like Mountain Breeze detergent.

I shuffled downstairs on the last leg of my laundry chore, arriving seven minutes early. So I sat there, perched on a washing machine, and watched my clothes circle round, tossed in concentric cycles of color.

And then, there was Mr. Owl, pushed to the forefront by a wad of bedsheet, flying around the dryer, wings flapping and squat form flipping himself over and around. It was a comical sight, to see how freely he bounced, reverberating off walls of cycling clothing. I laughed at him then, sitting alone in the laundry room, Indian style on machine number four. Me and Mr. Owl, old friends.