I’m doing my best to avoid my dryer. It’s nothing personal, I simply don’t care to heat up my tiny home when outside the temp is climbing.

Inside is always ten degrees hotter, and I’ve no AC. So you can see why I try slinking by my dryer as unobtrusively as possible. But inevitably the laundry must be done.

Only one load, I decide. Just enough to get me through a couple days.

My fat-cat Midge likes to nap right in front of the dryer. She won’t move, though I’m in danger of trampling on her as I transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer. She looks up at me and gives more of a squawk than a meow, her whiskers quivering with indignation.

I know Midge is in cahoots with my dryer. I’ve long suspected this, and now the certainty of it makes me secretly glad that I accidentally stepped on the tip of her tail.

“Come on, Porcupine!” my dryer squeaks as the drum begins rotating. Midge twists her neck to give me a pointed look. I’ve upset her nap, invaded her space, and brought my squeaky dryer to life, obviously all for the purpose of irritating her.

Sorry, not sorry, I tell her silently. I watch her slowly gather in her limbs and fur to begin the process of standing up. When that’s accomplished she takes her sweet time stretching dramatically.

“Come on, Porcupine!” squeaks my dryer. I’m not sure who’s being addressed, me or Midge.

I should be the prickly one today. This morning Midge awakened me by chomping on a book. Which is an improvement over being awakened by her eating my hair, but not by much.

I should carry a grudge for all the times I’ve nearly broken my neck trying to step over or around her, just when she decided to get up and tangle herself up in my feet.

I should give her murderous looks for the pile of vomit she’s not so cleverly hidden with one of my shirts, a pile I didn’t even know was there until I grabbed the shirt and promptly stepped in warm vomit with my bare feet.

I should follow her example and sit with my back to her when she does something to offend me.

But, when she begins her waddle to her food dish on her impossibly thin stick legs, I don’t have the heart to bear that grudge. I even gently nudge her aside and check her food for ants before I let her start eating.

I think we’re both a couple of prickly porcupines, doing our best to survive the heat.