What's worse than working late?

In my job, I often finish work after 8. Tonight was no exception. It was 10.30 by the time I'd completed the final step of my journey home: carrying my bicycle three floors up the stairs to my front door. Surprisingly, I was in a good mood. Unlike some days, which can be a constant slog, today I spent two hours participating in an interesting office debate over the future of electric cars (e-cars). As I unlocked the door, rolled the bike into its place, and stepped into my room, I was musing on how there's sure to be an app-filled i-Car on the shelves by Christmas.

What I didn't expect to find, was my room, ransacked. I had suffered a break-in, but not in the traditional sense, the first glance told me it had nothing to do with the usual suspects. No, this thief had only one thing on its mind: chocolate, a whole box of it, tiny shreds of which were now littering my bedroom floor.

"What's worse than working late?" you ask. Coming home to find squirrels have broken into your house, crept into your room, and scoffed a whole box of Buttler's Irish chocolates!


"Shame," you say, "but how do you know it was a squirrel, pet detective?". Almost as often as I work late (and especially then) the little buggers wake me up in the early hours of the morning, as they scurry along the ceiling. I know for sure they're squirrels because one happened upon me one lazy Sunday morning whilst it was surveying the house for loot, and I was lounging in bed.

In a state of shock and disbelief, with Buttler's Irish chocolate box wrapping still strewn all over the floor, that I made my way to the kitchen. But wait! My evening was about to get worse.

I found my laundry in the washer-dryer, as I'd left it (but presumably a little damper and a lot cleaner). However, as I reached into the dryer to grab a handful of socks, I noticed something was amiss: a large plastic part was lying in amongst my laundry. "How bizarre!" I thought, "I wonder how this got there?" I was soon to find out.

The next handful I retrieved did contain washing, but this washing wasn't simply damper and cleaner, it was shredded. Yes, shredded. As shredded as a Buttler's Irish chocolate box, ripped apart by ravenous squirrels. What soon emerged, following further frantic handfuls of shredded laundry, was the culprit: a series of sharp metal ridges, part of the washing machine's drum, which had been exposed by its faulty plastic accomplice which had cunningly come loose and landed up in my wash load.

Since this plastic part was essentially all that differentiated the washing machine from a blender, my clothes had been sliced and slashed into rags and ribbons.

"Not to worry," I thought, as a soothing realisation came over me: "Now all I've got to do is put another box of Buttler's Irish chocolates into the washing machine, and wait for that squirrel!"