Mouse Story

 

Since my muse seems to be AWOL I stole a Facebook posting from an old friend (was in High School with her husband) who is a retired Elementary School Principal and a long time rancher. The slippers picture was stolen from Coffypot.

 Middle of the Night Musings: I firmly believe that you’re never too old to learn and this afternoon I learned a lot about the trunk of my car. First, my trunk is large enough to hold two people my size and vacuum. Second, when you're my age, my height, and have a knee which is occasionally obstinate, it's not as easy to escape from the trunk as people want you to believe. Three, if you're going to take our your spare, take pictures each step of the way so you can put it back together again.

For some 40 years, my car has never been kept in a garage and I've never had a problem with mice getting in my car. For some reason, maybe because of the long fall, I've suddenly had mice decide to move into the trunk of my car. For the last couple of days, I kept finding little nests in the trunk of my car and cleaning them out. Hadn't had any new little nests since I caught two in traps but yester I noticed that the faux fur headband I had set in the back window had a few tell tale signs around it. So Katie Bar the Door!!!. Out came the mask, the gloves, vacuum with car attachment, bleach wipes and Lysol spray. I Lysol sprayed the interior and the trunk and let it set for about an hour. Vacuumed everything in the interior and then popped the trunk. There was no sign of any mice activity there but I vacuumed it anyway. Though I saw a suspicious bulge which might have been a nest under the carpet way in the back of the trunk. I didn't want to break the cover for the spare tire so I pulled it out. There it was, my nice shiny spare and jack all nicely factory installed. I notice some grass seed in the folds of the felt pouch that held the jack, so I took unscrewed the piece that was holding it and set it on the ground. Then I spotted poking out one of the holes in the spare tire rim, a piece of the faux fur from my winter headband. I pulled it a little and out it came with some pink insulation from inside the garage wall. That's when I knew, I had to take out the spare tire. I unscrewed the piece kept the tire in place and pulled it out, and lifted the spare out of the trunk. The mice had filled the spare tire well with nesting material and grass seed. The cleaning frenzy was on with the vacuum and more bleach and Lysol. Once cleaned and triple sterilized, it was time to deal with that suspicious lump. The only problem was that my arms are in proportion with my body and were too short to reach and lift the carpet covering that lump. There was only one thing to do, put the vacuum into the trunk and climb in with it. When you're short, getting into the trunk of a full sized sedan where the front is closer to the ground than the back is like trying to get into the back of a 4-wheel drive pickup. You throw your front half in, wiggle your feet and pull with your hands until the legs and feet are in also. I am happy to report that the suspicious lump under the carpet was some sort of electrical connection and there was no sign of mice under the carpet. That is also when I realized that I would have to turn around and the vacuum was bigger than I thought and definitely hindered my ability to turn around. Did i mention that the vacuum was electric and had a 20 foot cord that I had to make sure I didn't get tangled in? I had to get the vacuum out of the trunk so I could maneuver myself into a position where I could pull myself out of the trunk. I rolled over on my back, gathered the cord and the vacuum and managed to lower the vacuum to the ground by the cord. I considered calling to JIm who was in the house for help but he was at an all day zoom meeting and besides, he was at the other end of the house and the house is so well insulated that you can't hear coyotes in the yard unless the window is open. Then I heard the tractor start out at the machine shed. It was Pat letting the diesel warm up before going feeding. I knew I could yell loud enough to be heard that far, but with an enclosed cab and the tractor running, I also knew I would not be heard. Then I heard the tractor leave. It was up to me to get myself out of this predicament. It took a lot of maneuvering, sort of like a dog circling before laying down , but eventually, I was seated parallel to the trunk opening. I braced myself with my left arm to the top of the trunk, hoping the lid wouldn't slam down on my hands, pulled myself up, threw my right leg over the edge followed by my left leg and rolled out of the trunk, landing on my feet. I now know that if I am ever kidnapped and put in a trunk that I can escape . . . if they give me a half hour or more. One piece of advice; if you ever enter that cavern called your trunk, take water, food, headlamp and your cell phone. Think I'll get a garage cat. Do you think a Bengal Tiger will do the job?