I live on the ground floor of a classic Montreal triplex, and have a very small back yard with a clothesline.  Today felt like possibly the last day this year for hanging out laundry, and it might be wishful thinking on my part. (I may have to bring everything in and use the dryer anyway. Environment Canada says it's 2° right now.)

There's a basket of pegs hanging on the hook with the clothesline reel. 

Twice in previous years I've put my hand in the basket to find a treat. Once it was a single wrapped peanut butter cup – it was not long after Halloween – and once it was a cookie.

Today it was also a cookie, the kind with a hole in the middle, and chocolate icing zigzagged across it.

The yard has a fence and a gate, which wouldn't present much of a barrier to a determined invader, although I can't imagine a human being taking the trouble to get past the gate to give me a cookie. I have no friends nearby who would do this as a joke, either.

I suppose a squirrel perceives the peg basket as a safe repository for cookies and treats, but I wonder whether it's been the same squirrel each time. 

I just noticed the prompt "tell us a horror story" above, and this isn't one, unless I eat the cookie and turn into a rabid squirrel zombie.