Never a dull moment back at my parents’ house, apparently. Mom wrote me an email just now saying that last night when she opened the dishwasher, a little mouse was staring back at her from the silverware holder. Now how on earth a mouse got into the dishwasher, I don’t know, but there he was. Mom called my older brother over, who wanted to shoot it with a BB gun, but Mom put a stop to that as it would cause a heck of a mess. So then she called my dad over, who decided to give the mouse a rinse job with the “Rinse Only” cycle, so it would be short. They turned the dishwasher on and a few minutes later opened it up again, very cautiously. There’s the mouse, sitting cool as a cucumber in the top tray, undisturbed. So then another brainstorm happens and they decide to get the Shop-Vac. My brother went and got it from the garage and they attempted to suck up the mouse. Well, the mouse got sucked, because Shop-Vacs don’t mess around. However, when my brother looked in the hose, the little mouse was hanging out near the top, so he clapped his hand over the opening. My dad and brother decided the cats needed a snack, but in the process of releasing the mouse, he escaped. Mom thinks he’ll be back for another rinse job soon.

Edit: And here is my dad’s take on how the mouse gained his freedom:

None of the cats came around, so we called Goldie. She was excited and looking for something to grab, but spent about a second too long sniffing the waterlogged mouse on the porch and he zipped out from under her nose, made a half-loop under the truck and then vanished under the porch.