Mouse tales

A colleague greeted me this morning by asking, "Any more rats in your car?"

That's what I get for opening my mouth. Since I wrote yesterday about receiving a surprise visit from a mouse while driving to work, many people have offered suggestions, some more helpful than others:

"You know that's a safety hazard, right?" Right. I was there, remember? I know how hard I struggled to maintain control of the car while the mouse went leaping about on the edge of my peripheral vision. But let's face it: driving a cranky 17-year-old car is a safety hazard, moreso because of the lack of cup-holders. (How did we ever live before cup-holders?) I silently accept a certain amount of hazard daily--but I can't keep my mouth shut when the mice start leaping.

"Nothing works better than an old-fashioned mouse trap." Right again, but picture me blindly reaching into the back seat for an umbrella or a Kleenex or a can of oil and unexpectedly locating the mouse trap. Talk about a safety hazard!

"Time to get a cat." In my car? Where would I keep the litter box?

"This wouldn't happen if you lived in town instead of out there in the godforsaken wilderness." I'm not so sure about that. I've heard stories of critters getting into cars even in the heart of the city. Some of those critters walk upright and find that opposable thumbs come in handy when it comes to stealing hubcaps. (Not that my car suffers from a surfeit of hubcaps.)

For a while now I've kept a cake of mouse poison in my car, the kind that makes vermin thirsty and drives them out of the car to seek water, but that did not deter yesterday's visitor. This morning I approached my car with some trepidation, and all the way to campus I kept expecting to hear a squeak or see a flash of gray fur or feel little mouse feet climbing up my neck. If merely thinking about mice in the car is a safety hazard, then it's time to find a better solution before driving Miss Mousy starts seriously driving me crazy.