I washed a load of towels this morning.

After returning from the Acme I went down into the basement to move the towels from the washer to the dryer.

I had gotten all the towels out, or so I thought, when I noticed a black spot at the bottom of the washer tub.

Hmm. I’ve seen things like that before. It was probably a washrag that was partially stuck under the agitator.

So I reached down to pull it out and— 

Yuck!

It was soft and gooey.

Reflexively I pulled out my hand; then I turned on the flashlight (or torch as the Brits more economically say) on my iPhone.

It wasn’t black after all. It was reddish.

What the—?

Grabbing a paper towel, I fished it out, and it turned out to be–

A strawberry?

How the hell did a strawberry get into— 

Oh, wait.

In addition to bath towels, there were tea towels in that load. One in particular.

Yesterday I bought some strawberries on Ninth Street, and when I got them home I soaked them in a vinegar solution for five minutes (to kill any micro-organisms), then rinsed them off and dried them with a tea towel. I do that so the strawberries will keep a bit longer. It mostly works.

Anyway, I must’ve left one strawberry in the tea towel, and that found its way to the bottom of my washer today.