Broadcast: November 23, 2003
Duke's Story

Duke the Mouse in:
DIVING FOR DISHES

     If you have a choice, don’t do dishes with a mouse. I learned that lesson the hard way.
     I guess I was out playing touch football with Duke while the Thanksgiving meal was being prepared. We were reading magazines while the table was being set. So that left us with the dishes.
     Now, I’m not saying kitchen clean-up is hard work, but with a mouse like Duke, cleaning up a toxic waste site would be easier. Oh, Duke is my pet mouse and he’s as lazy as a bowl of frozen gravy. He didn’t want to do anything.
     As I filled with sink with hot, sudsy water, Duke said he would check on my progress a little later.
     Not so fast, I informed my slacker mouse. Either he help with the dishes or he’d be walking the plank.
     Duke informed he would didn’t care to wash dishes like a common galley slave.
     Well, that was enough of that. I snatched my little friend and placed him on the end of the faucet and held a fork to his backside. Duke inched his way to end, still refusing to help until I employed the business end of the fork and Duke grabbed his tail and jumped into the suds.
     Well, I still did most of the work but Duke helped out by diving to the bottom for spoons, saucers and dinner plates and hauling them to the surface where I’d scrub them and then rinse. Next year I’m going to be setting the table, you can bet on that. But Duke liked washing dishes. Next year he said he’s bringing his swim suit.
     And that’s the way it is with Duke.