The laundry room smelled like a forgotten gym sock and regret. I bent over the washer, arm deep in a pile of denim, when the dog erupted from the hallway like a furry tornado. His tail wagged a Morse code emergency as he lunged for my left sock—now a rogue projectile in the air.
“No!” I lunged, but too late. The sock helicoptered into the kitchen, where my roommate’s cactus stared back like a judgmental sage. The dog pivoted, snout low, and charged the plant pot. Dirt rained down as he dug until the sock emerged, triumphantly squashed between two spines.
“You’re a menace,” I said, rubbing my temples. The dog blinked, then dropped the sock at my feet like a golden retriever offering a dead mouse. He wagged his tail, ears perked, as if this was a team victory. I glanced at the mountain of laundry—now half-socked, half-cactus-adjacent—and laughed until my ribs ached. Some days, I thought, life’s just a series of small wars. And today, I was losing to a dog who’d clearly studied guerrilla tactics in the art of chaos.
