Case of the Purloined Clothes

Reading my sister's blog entry reminds me of the incident one Summer in Fort Collins, the home of my mother and father-in-laws.

We would regularly hang clothes on an umbrella shaped hanger and every afternoon when we took off the clothes we were noticing that single socks were missing as well as odd pieces of underwear.

We looked around the yard and they didn't seem to be off in the bushes or the grass. So where were they? Some people in the family accused other people of not being good hangers and the hangers did not take the blame because they had done their best. We finally came to the conclusion that the only defense was to say.. its hard to get good help now days... it changed the anger of concern. Still clothes were missing and you could not accuse the dryer monster.

This continued to happen for the next two weeks. Some socks were getting rather thin and singles were collecting in bundles that "almost" made it or just a spare piles.

Then one day the mystery was solved. A little boy about 8 years old sheepishly knocked on each of the doors in the neighborhood. He was carrying a medium sized cardboard box. He knocked on our door and we opened the door.

He said, do any of these clothes look like one's you have lost. Well son of a gun there were all kinds of lost clothes in the box. Some of them were even ours..

We picked out ours. We asked.."Where did you get these?"

He answered.. well my cat has been bringing home these clothes. We knew they are from our neighbor's clothes lines. I was told to take them back to the people.

Soooo... Keep an eye on those hanging clothes and look for stay cats with clothes in their mouthes.

Love pat : )