Tiny

I always hear the clank of metal on metal when drying my clothes. The wash load was mostly jeans this time. I always hated doing jeans; it takes so much longer to dry. Lately though the sounds of the clothes in the dryer has gotten louder. Of course it was, the dryer was very old, at least 30 years old. I joke with my mother about tiny people that live in her dryer that do all the work and only such tiny people lived in such ooolllddd appliances I would tell her with a smile and a giggle. I made fun of the dryer's age even more so when we moved into our new house and had to get a new hook-up plug for the dryer. I told her that she put her tiny people out of work and they were all gonna starve now that the dryer wasn't working.

"Stop picking on my dryer. Or maybe I'll instruct those tiny people not to dry your clothes." She said with a smile.

"I'm not dissing the dryer." I said "Just simply stating it's...vintage-ness." I laugh.

Just as the words came out and our laughter calmed the dryer made a rather loud clank. I saw the mild alarm on my mom's face; I know how much she loved her old style machines. My first thought was the potential of a fire and our escape route. She went to check the machine which was still going, I heard her open the door to the dryer to check on the contents when I heard a sound of shock; yup a fire or at least a smoke, must be minor if she's not freaking out.

"Oh my, ummm Julie." My mother said in a stunned voice.

Humor gone from me, I really do wonder if my jeans began to burn. I go to the laundry room to see the shock braced on my mom's face to severe it's almost funny, then I followed her stare and I couldn't believe what I saw.

The noise in the dryer turned out to be actual tiny people in her dryer. Their expressions varied from surprise to shock to looks of 'I'm busted'.

"HiI'm Steve!" one of them shouted with a huge smile while holding my now shrunkentiny jeans in his little hands.

The End