Return of the Volvomice

You know that annoying noise in my car? Not the mournful groan on sharp left turns or the occasional clickety ticking associated with the left rear wheel, but the tiny peeping sound like a mouse squeaking?

It was a mouse squeaking.

The last time I became aware that mice were visiting my car (read it here), I didn't actually see any mice--just the droppings and nesting material they left behind. This time the mouse was right there next to me on the passenger seat while I was driving down the highway at 55 miles per hour.

The next sound you hear will be considerably louder than a mouse squeaking.

You may notice how calmly I am writing this, but if you had seen me at the moment when I looked into the rear-view mirror and saw the mouse leaping from headrest to headrest, the last word you would have chosen is calm.

I had to pull over. Beside the highway. In the middle of the morning rush hour. I couldn't sit there calmly in the driver's seat while a mouse went leaping from headrest to headrest behind me. Who knows where it would leap next?

I saw it run into the way-back and I thought I might just open the hatch and let it leap out, but the lock back there is cranky and the only way to open it is to use the key, which was still in the ignition.

In the car.

With the mouse.

Now don't go thinking I'm some hysterical female who faints dead away at the sight of a mouse. We live in the woods, for heaven's sake! This is just the season when they're looking for a warm place to hunker down for the winter, so it did not surprise us to find a mouse in the kitchen mousetrap this morning. When I see or hear a mouse scampering across the kitchen floor, I don't panic. All I have to do is make some noise and it will find a place to hide--preferably near a mousetrap.

But my car is a different story. Where will a mouse go to hide? Up the leg of my pants? In my coat pocket? Under my foot while I'm trying to hit the brakes? Over my dead body!

So I had to steel myself to reach back inside the car (where the mouse was!) and grab my keys out of the ignition, and then I fiddled with the hatchback lock while keeping half an eye on the mouse, which seemed to enjoy sitting right on top of the rear heat vents, and when I finally got the hatchback opened and grabbed the big stick we use to prop it up (because the hydraulics don't work), the mouse ran back toward the front seats.

What would you have thought if you'd driven past and seen me banging loudly on the windows of a rickety old Volvo wagon and yelling my head off when there was no one there to listen?  Loony. Time to call the Keeper of the Straitjackets.

Fortunately, it worked. Usually my car makes noise at me, but this time I directed a mess of noise straight at my car and I was rewarded with the sight of a little gray mouse leaping from the rear door and scurrying off into a nearby field.

Note to self: from now on, make noise first before leaving the driveway. Bang on the hood, yell at the way-back, kick the tires, crank up the radio, and if the first thing that comes on is Blue Christmas," all the better. If Elvis can't drive the mice away, nothing will.