Mice

There is a mouse in my car...... again. It leaves its little "wild rice kernels" everywhere so you can follow its path around the spice route. The back seats, of course, where, the kids sit are a veritable county fair with all the detritus of snacks and meals and drinks on the run. When you live in the boonies, there is a lot more driving. We drive Elia 30 minutes to her school in Oregon City. We drive to synagogue. We drive the kids to Nashira (Jewish Sunday School) every two weeks. We drive to the doctor. All that driving requires snacking. We have been saying for weeks that we need to vacuum out the car, but we just weren't quick enough for those mice. There is the chance that this is a "foreign" mouse. Andrew and I went to Breitenbush this past weekend to celebrate his 40th birthday. Our car sat in the parking lot there for over 24 hours emitting its delicious smells to rodents in the vicinity. It must have been similar to how we feel when we walk into a Thai restaurant after living for three years in this town which has only greasy bar food and bad chinese food to offer.

I thought I saw mouse "sign" when I got into the car on Tuesday morning. Elia needed pennies for a mosaic project at school and I was gamely digging them out of the drink receptacle where they were glued in and turning green from contact with who-knows-what sticky substance - most likely spilled coffee or tea. There were a couple of black specks. I love how the mind tries to make them innocuous. First the hand freezes and then the brain, "could be lint..." It was only later when my freezing cold hand reached for the heater fan that the evidence became incontrovertible. Right there, vertical. On the heater fan dial. Oh yeah. Time to clean the car.