"SHOWER SURPRISE...YIKES!"

Many homes on Cape Cod have an outside shower. I haven't noticed this phenomenon in other parts of the country. Outside showers are convenient as you can wash off all the sand and salt water from returning from the beach without going through your house and leaving a trail of sand behind you. Another advantage of an outdoor shower is that you don't have to worry about running a bathroom fan to dissipate the steamy fog created from an indoor shower.

I generally use my outdoor shower from late April through late November. I don't use the shower on rainy days as I wouldn't want to get wet from the rain.

Yesterday afternoon while using my outdoor shower I had a "shower surprise". I had just finished my shower (see picture of an outdoor shower on your left) and was reaching for my towel to dry myself off. I felt something on top of my right foot. I looked down to my right foot to see what it was and there sitting on my foot was either a field mouse or a vole about five or six inches long, dark grey in color. "Yikes" I said, as I shook this creature off my foot and watched as this animal scampered off my foot and darted under the gap of the stockade fence of the shower enclosure and under my sun porch. This little blackish creature literally came out of the blue as I didn't see it until it was on my foot.

In the past I have seen a rabbit in my shower but the rabbit didn't want to stay and hop on to my right foot. Perhaps this mouse creature was in his mouse home and was being lectured by his mother and father mouse about some bad mouse behavior. Perhaps the mother and father mouse said to their child mouse "You better shape up and get on the right foot". This mouse then saw me taking a shower and remembered his parent's sage advise and got on my right foot. Yikes!