One cannot choose one's lot in life.
But, what one chooses to do after birth, is one's choice.
And that is why I do not care for mice.
Mice are beginning to cost me a little bit of guilt.
And a whole wad of money.
I just dropped off my favorite car at the repair shop, again.
I admit the last time was my fault.
I had not yet fully realized the extent to how much you cannot mess with technology.
"My dad always used to say, "Don't force it."
And that was before everything was automated.
Well, I did hear his voice that day.
The day I let Ravi beep all the way to the lake.
I could have easily put the backseats down in order to get the stools inside and the hatch back could have clicked securely into place.
I only needed a few more inches in order to clear the opening.
There are a couple ways to look at this.
A) The stools are almost in, so it won't be a problem to put the seats down so that I can close the door.
B) They are only sticking out a tiny bit, so why bother putting the seats down and going through all the trouble?
And you could also look at it like this.
A) It is only a couple miles to the cottage. I can drive slow.
B) It is over two miles to the cottage. I should get the stools inside and do this properly.
Well.
Guess which one I am?
But, no worries.
A nagging beep can easily by hushed by a volume button on a radio dial.
And just one week earlier I rode next to my Sweet Sven, who was doing the exact same thing.
That time it was a pier section sticking out the back. The beeping wasn't that bad.
This explains my sweet Sven and I in a nutshell.
Anyway, I was even more surprised than you when Brian handed us the RAV4 hatch back bill.
"Thirteen hundred dollars?" I said.
I watched Sven reach for his check book without flinching.
That is when I knew he was in shock.
And all Brian could do was look at me and say, "What in the hell did you do to your car?"
Some people do not understand determination.
Once I arrived at the cottage with those stools sticking out a couple of itty bitty inches in the back with the radio overriding the beeps, I hit the button for the door to rise.
Ravi just beeped.
I pressed it again and again.
And again and again she beeped.
Over and over she continued to say the same thing.
"Beep. Beep. Beep."
Someday somebody is going to write a book about the car who cried beep.
Ravi was still intent on closing that back door.
"Oh," I said. "I see."
So I pushed the button again.
And then perhaps, again.
No matter how many times I pressed that button, that hatch back still wanted to close and lock.
But it could not as there were stools in the way.
"You must go down, before you can go up," her Stepford Wife computer chip was telling her.
Well, I about had enough of that shit.
So I pulled up on the back door.
"Shit."
It was really hard to move it.
But, with determination, which I do have, I got that door open about a half a foot. And I was then able to slide those stools out and set them on the grass.
"There."
I pressed the button to finally close that door the way she wanted it.
At last we could both be happy.
But.
No.
All she did was, "beep."
I tried pulling the door up some more.
"Jesus."
It was not going to budge another inch.
I tried to push it closed.
It would not move.
She left me with no other choice.
I pushed that hatch back closed with all my weight centered in my ass as I leaned against it and dug my heels into the earth.
It clicked shut.
I pushed the button again, just once.
You know, to see if maybe, just perhaps, the slate between us had been wiped clean.
It had not.
"Beep," was all she had to say in the form of a middle finger.
"Uh-oh," I thought. "I don't think Sven is going to be very happy about this."
I was right.
"What's that Louisa?"
Hang on. My sister is shouting something to me.
"I am getting to the part about the mice. Jeez."
A few months prior to the hatch back repair job, I was driving along in town and Louisa happened to be riding shot gun.
My heater fan started to rattle.
Then it began to clunk.
It was really loud.
Really noisy!
I screamed bloody murder and pulled over.
"What?" screamed Louisa.
I hit every button on my dash till I finally shut off the fan.
"That noise?" I said turning to her.
"Yeah?" she says.
"I am pretty sure that was a mouse caught in the fan."
"Let me out of here!" she screams.
You see, previously I owned a little black KIA, that I always called, my little black KIA.
I had a similar situation one winter when my fan started to rattle. I had to turn the heat on high for it to send any warm air through the vents.
"There was a mouse nest in there," said Brian.
"Where are the mice now?" I said.
"I don't know," he answered.
But this time with Louisa next to me trying to escape from my vehicle, the noise was different.
It seemed as though something solid was banging around.
Sven made an appointment.
A couple days later we got Ravi into the shop.
And that bill was almost four hundred dollars.
"It was the bloodiest murder scene I have ever witnessed," Brian said.
And he isn't even on CSI.
"I had to replace the whole thing and blow out the lines. An ugly, ugly, situation. Terrible."
He looked like he was going to barf because of all the blood and guts. And I looked like I was going to puke because of the bill.
But we all got past it.
And then, just the other day, I was driving along with the air on, listening to a chapter a day and.
The fan began to softly rattle.
I smacked that off button so fast, it would make your head swim.
And if you want to know what the hell that means you will have to ask Sharon. Because she is the one who always said it.
My little Ravi is in the shop right now.
Brian is taking her apart as we speak.
I hope it is just a little mouse less nest.
No feet.
No guts.
No blood.
Is it too much for me to ask you vermin out there in my garage to make your homes someplace other than under the hood of my favorite car?
All I want to do is drive from point A to point B.
But instead I feel like a home wrecking serial killer on wheels.
"What are you saying now Louisa?"
Well, for once she has a point. It is hard to get from point A to point B when you refuse to make a left turn without a green arrow.