10.03 pm

Munchkin runs up the stairs from the basement, for all the world like there's an army of ghouls behind him, shouting "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow there's an ANIMAL in the washer." I'm in the guest room (because both of the bedrooms I occupied in this house have since been taken over by various brothers) changing, so I put my jeans back on because if there is some sort of large animal I'll feel much better prepared to deal with it if I am wearing jeans and not pink tiger striped pajama pants.

The animal turns out to be a mouse. I learn this from my mother, who is having trouble talking because she's laughing so hard. My father, it seems, has gone down to the basement to deal with said mouse, Munchkin being incapable of doing so at the moment. Dad comes up the stairs and starts lecturing Munchkin on why you don't run up the stairs as though there were an army of ghouls behind you yelling "ow ow ow ow ow" if your only problem is a mouse in the washer. As my father talks, he waves his hands around. He doesn't appear to notice that one of the hands is holding a plastic container, like the kind you get at the deli when you order a pasta salad, with a very wet, small mouse in it.

"Is that the mouse?" I ask. "Is it dead?"

My father shakes the container a few times. The mouse moves. "No," he says. "It's rather wet and unhappy though."

And really, this is a fairly typical evening in my parents house.