I’m going to write a post. It needs a witty title, and I’ve come up empty. So I’m having a contest. Suggest a title in the comments, and the best one (well, the one I like best) gets used. I’m guessing I’ll be biased toward something that sounds like it came from the pen of Dr. Seuss, but we shall see. I’ll change the post slug and everything (that’s wordpress-speak for the permanent URL). Okay, here’s the post.
When I opened the door to the garage, I noticed a smell. An evil smell, but I was thinking about other things and hustled the kids into the car so I could get them to school on time. Next I was off to the outplacement office for several hours of solitude and job searching. Then back to the car to drive home for a very late lunch. And when the AC kicked on, there was that evil smell again. “It’s soaked into my car!” I thought to myself, dismayed.
I chatted with Tricia while driving home, and she thought she had smelled something in the laundry room. I figured the smell had come in from the garage, which meant I had probably caught a stray mouse in one of the many traps hidden around the garage (leftover from the war that took place a couple months ago). When I got home, I checked it all out. Nothing. And the smell wasn’t very strong in the garage. Strange.
I ate lunch and then headed to my car, intending to drive to the library to work for a few more hours before dinner. The moment I opened the door to the garage, I was overcome by THE smell. The garage was thick with it. Hmmm… that meant whatever had died had to be… IN MY CAR! I drove to the library, parked in the parking lot, popped the hood, and started looking.
It took a few minutes, but I found it. I could only see the middle part of the body buried deep within the interworkings of a packed in import engine compartment, but I’m thinking rat. Either that, or squirrel, but my money is on rat.
It’s still out there, stinking up my car. I’m in here, trying to work, and thinking that this is one expense we will just have to bear. See, once I use our grill tongs to remove the critter this evening, those tongs are going straight into the garbage. And since we will be grilling for company this weekend, I’ll have to replace them. Some things are not meant to be washed and then used again for food prep.