Muffy Story #2: Eau de Bounce

Muffy and my mom live in a northern state where it is cold for many months out of the year. This often confuses Muffy because if it is pretty and sunny outside then she wants to go sit on her back porch. She doesn't quite grasp that if it looks nice outside, it is not necessarily warm outside. My mom's house has bay French doors leading out onto the patio and there is a step that runs along them where Muffy loves to sit and watch the world go by. However, on days when it is sunny but cold, Muffy will beg to go out and then very shortly thereafter beg to come in. Of course, within 10 minutes or so she will have forgotten that it is cold outside and she will once again want to go out because, "It's sunny out Mom! Let's go sit on the step!". In, out, in, out...you get the idea.

Well, one day when Muffy was a puppy, we were having an "in, out, lather, rinse, repeat" kind of day when suddenly she stopped begging to come in. Frankly, we didn't really notice. We were probably just grateful that she had decided to stay put for a while. Well, when she finally did come in some time later, we realized when we picked her up that she smelled...oddly clean. In fact, she smelled like fabric softener! This was somewhat disturbing since the fabric softener, along with all of the other laundry implements, is kept in the basement where, to our knowledge, Muffy had never been.

A few days later, when it was again sunny and cold, we figured out how Muffy got her new perfume. The dryer exhaust vent is situated on the side of the house directly above the step where Muffy likes to sit. She had figured out that it was warm and was sitting there on cold days when she wanted to be outside. She still does it to this day. In fact, my mom has admitted to doing a load of laundry specifically so that Muffy can have her space heater on cold days.