The day when dishrags took over the world, only a few were surprised. We had all harboured our separate doubts about their inanimativity and subservience to humans. No one had ever been bold enough to actually say to someone else, "Hey.. what if the dishrags aren't as friendly as they seem to be?" or "What if dishrags are hostile aliens?" If only they had. If only. If. Only.
The government had harboured minor suspicions, and though no government official was so foolish as to actually admit that the government was monitoring dishrag activity, most officials on the UN Council Of Completely Unnecessary Dishrag Observation (COCUDO) knew that it wasn't quite as unnecessary as their spokespeople claimed.
Within the first four months of operation, officials were doing everything in their power to avoid giving away their inner panic to one another. They had to struggle each day to pretend that it was perfectly normal that no one had ever heard of a dishrag factory. They had to camouflage their terror with smiles when they discovered the number of dishrag-related deaths occuring every year. They had to joke lightly about the signals emanating from the dishrags towards outer space while their insides were begging them to scream in horror. Each employee searched for the panic in everyone else's eyes, while doing everything in their power to conceal their own panic over this obviously evil phenomena.
Somehow, the information from COCUDO got out to the dishrag community. There were ever-increasing reports of dishrags managing to wiggle free of their counter and stove based prisons and attacking innocent owners. While the humans peacefully slept, the dishrags crawled into their mouths like some evil pestilence. Everywhere people were suffocating, young children were slipping, and dishes and countertops were getting dirty. Filthy, in a few desparate cases. The dishrags, now obviously bent on world domination, had thrown the rulebook of conventional warfare out the window.
The armies of the world were ordered to halt the dishrag rebellion at all costs, but the army was hardly suited for such guerrila warfare. The army could not invade every private residence in the world. They decided to concentrate their efforts on one home, in the fear that the obviously cowardly dishrags would then flee the planet and return from whence they came, presumably hell.
The house, which was randomly selected by an expert, was situated in western Vienna. It was a house with a stone base and wooden siding. In it lived a mother, a father and seven small children named Anne. They had always been fond of dishrags, being nocturnal, and had been caught off guard when their seven dishrags had risen to serve the forces of darkness.
The army division armed and arrived, ready to battle for humankind. The general rang the doorbell, and when there was no answer after an appropriate pause, broke it in. He could not restrain his gasp of disgust at the messy kitchen. Thousands of troops poured into the house and covered every square inch. The innocent family was found in the master bedroom, cowering boldly on top of the dresser, trying to hit down the approaching Satan-cloth with energy weapons.
The army knocked politely and then burst into the bedroom with the force of a thousand angry rabbits exploding in unison. The dishrags turned cowardly and would not face the army in fair combat. They scurried this way and that, under the dresser, under the bed, into the linen closet. The army bravely pulled their triggers and sprayed firey death in all directions (except left, of course).
Sadly, left was exactly where the dishrags were. The family had been firing energy weapons, and now both the family and many of the courageous soldiers now lay dead. A SWAT team boldly swung in through the window in the middle of the firefight and were decimated. The vile swaths of fabric now attacked en masse, thrusting themselves into the faces of the noble soldiers, causing them to spin around and shoot their helpless army buddies. The general realized the situation was hopeless while the army fought on the dishrags' terms, and ordered a strategic fallback. The soldiers heroically fled across their fallen comrades and out the windows and in all directions, away from the hideous dishrag stronghold.
It was decided that the best tactic would be to simply burn the house and the dishrags with it. They began to hurl firey arrows, torches, Greek fire, boulders, grenades, dead horses, and low-scale thermonuclear weapons at the 'house of death', as they had dubbed it. The murderous dishrags and the rest of Vienna ceased to exist--the brave, unaware citizens of Vienna giving their lives so that the Battle of Vienna could end in victory.
Unfortunately, the heartless dishrags weren't phased by this loss. They continued their demonic tyranny against humankind. The armies and government of the world were toppled, and civilization entered a dark age from which it would never fully recover. As the last humans shivered in obscure corners of the world, awaiting scrungy death, the dishrags simply stopped. The vast dishrag armies collapsed where they had been, loose, limp, and as far as anyone could tell, dead.
Humanity began the steps toward recovery with time. There were public hangings of dishrags, but soon discovered that hanging limp cloth wasn't any fun. The dishrags were put to work cleaning up the world's messy kitchens, and things slowly went back to normal. Except for the goats, of course.