This is another story from the past, but unlike the last entry, this one has never been committed to paper - or cyberspace. But I thought of it the other day and realized it would be a crime not to share it.

I call this The Mystery of the Thong.

It was May, 2003. The day I was sealing the door on the packed U-Haul and, after 13 years in the High Country, moving to Colorado Springs.

All that remained to be done was to pick up a check from my last pet-sitting client. During 10 of those 13 years in Summit County, I operated a pet-sitting business. One that thrived so well I sometimes brought home more cash per month from it than I grossed from my full-time career reporting job.

It was the first time I had pet sat for this couple, an early 50-something pair who took off for a week someplace tropical. It wasn't the first time I did laundry at a client's house.

I spent my last 18 months of mountain residency in a drafty cabin with no washer and dryer - a truly evil little house but we shall save that story for another time. I saw no sense in dragging my dirty laundry to a laundromat, or to friends' homes, when all my pet-sitting customers had perfectly good washers and dryers. I suppose it would have been easier, and more honest, to simply ask their permission. But it seemed an offbeat request, so instead, I went ahead and did it, always checking every nook and cranny of both machines to ensure nothing was left behind. No one ever asked any questions or seemingly suspected a thing.

That final morning, I drove to the couple's home to pick up the check.

The man, a lean, gray-haired, sophisticated-seeming fellow, greeted me at the door. He smiled, an expression I assumed was genuine. In retrospect, I suspect it was rather a thin stretch of the lips. But I had no reason to suspect anything was amiss.

"Let's go downstairs," he said. "We have something for you."

He said "we" but his wife was not home.

I smiled again, a bit of an 'aw shucks' sort of thing. It was not uncommon for people to bring back a small, typically cheesy, gift from their exotic vacation spot for their petsitter. I hoped it was a coffee mug, or a useful object along those lines, not a miniature depiction of a leaping dolphin or some other dust magnet.

The man, whom we'll call Dick for simplicity's sake, motioned for me to sit down at a round wooden table in their remodeled basement. A small brown bag, its top curled downward into a little fist, sat innocently on the table. A tiny alert went off in my brain. Odd packaging, I thought, for a gift.

"Go ahead," Dick said. "Open it." His tone was somber, setting off another small alarm. But I paid it no mind; I was too anxious to see what treasure they had bought for me.

I uncurled the top and reached in, surprised when my hand closed around a wispy piece of cotton. I pulled it out into full display. It was a thong. A extremely tiny thong. With a pair of big, red lips on the only piece of fabric large enough to accommodate them. It was my thong.

"We found this on the floor in the hallway," he said.

I looked up. His eyes were dark and hard. I felt my face reddening, felt the first wave of humiliation crashing into my brain.

"It's dirty," he added.

I looked at him, my mouth gaping. I had not looked inside it. But clearly, he had.

Disbelief joined embarrassment. And then, anger made its appearance.

This man had set me up for this moment. Even worse, he had looked at my underwear. Suddenly, his crime seemed far worse to me than my own.

"How did it get here?" he asked.

Still more embarrassed than anything, I stumbled.
"I don't know," I said.

"Did you do laundry here?" the dick, I mean Dick, asked.

It would have been easiest to have confessed the simple truth. But he had me against a wall, and I panicked.

"No," I said."All I can think is that it must have gotten stuck inside my jeans last time I did laundry, and it fell out while I was walking in your house."

A clever answer, I thought, although it still did not address the little detail about the thong's dirty state.

He waited for more, but I had nothing else to say. Looking back, I should have said something cutting that would have turned the tables and made him see how utterly ridiculous a game he was playing. But I was stunned and my mind was set on only one thing: Escape.

Dick handed me a check. I took it, tossed the thong back into its brown bag, stood and exited the garden level door. I suppose I said thanks, since that would be my typical response to receiving a check, but I hope not.

I was only a block away when I began to laugh. First at myself, and then at Dick.

I realized I had left him with only one conclusion: I had had sex in his house. Somewhere. Perhaps on the washing machine. Maybe on the floor. Or could it have been ... in the master bed? I suddenly envisioned Dick stripping the bed, perhaps not only that bed but not knowing where the deed had occurred, every one in the house,

The truth was so pedestrian. The vision I had left him with so perverse. Precisely what he deserved.

I drove from there to a local diner where I met a few friends for a farewell brunch. We laughed about it until we cried. I did not show them the thong.

I expected to leave Summit County with relief. I had overstayed my time there by several years, and was chomping at the bit to start the next chapter in my life. Instead, I left with a delirious grin on my face, and a dirty thong by my side.