My 95, 3.8l sometimes has issues with its wipers. There doesn't seem to be an apparent pattern to the wipers working and not working consistently. When they have a problem, they park in the up position when either during the pause of the intermittent cycle or when you turn them off. The only way I can get it to park correctly, when acting this way is to try to trick it through turning it off mid cycle, or sometimes turning off and on the vehicle and a combination of switch posiitions. Turning off the vehicle alone will not reset the wipers to work correctly. Possibly the delay mode triggers this problem. I'll have to check.
Thanks

Actually, I hthink you'll find it's the clutch on the wiper motor. Very common failure on that generation of Taurus. $50 at a parts store, last time I checked.

I don't know about 96, but 96 and up have the wiper controls on the turn signal stalk. Those sometimes get gummed up.