Rats on wheels

By: LOUISE ESOLA - Staff Writer | Friday, August 26, 2005 10:25 PM PDT ∞

If you think the price at the pump (your entire 401(k) savings for a tank of regular unleaded?) is the scariest thing about having your own set of wheels, you might feel differently after reading this.

Ladies and gentlemen, put down your cookies, bagel, coffee, Krispy Kreme, or delicious Slim Fast shake. What I am about to tell you may shock you, or make you toss your cookies, or whatever it is you happen to be eating for breakfast this morning.

Here goes.

I suppose because of the high cost of dwelling in lovely, sunny California, rats have apparently taken up residency in vehicles. Yes. Rats. In your car. Perhaps right now. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek. Gross. Yuck.

I first learned of this after a colleague recently found himself stranded on the roadside of a major highway after his newer model car mysteriously decided to go on strike. Smarty, whose name is disguised here, did what any normal American would do. He called a tow truck and had his car taken to a nearby auto shop where they told him this surprising news: Mickey Mouse was living under the hood.

And now a warning for kiddies and animal rights activists, skip this next sentence. They had to capture it and kill it.

(To kiddies and animal rights activists who follow instructions: They actually had sheriff's deputies evict the little bugger, moving all of his belongings to the curb and telling him to go elsewhere. Sure it wasn't the most dignified way of telling him to get lost, but being so close to Disneyland and all, he had no trouble finding a place where he was more welcome.)

Anyway, as I graciously tip-toe away from that bomb of animal rights controversy, whew, I will continue my story.

This car malfunction apparently had much to do with the rat being low on cash for groceries and thus feasting on the delicious delicacy of the interior wiring and rubber belts of Smarty's automobile. How'd the grease monkeys at the auto shop know? Little teeth marks everywhere. And (eek) they see this sort of thing all the time, a familiarity often spotted between dermatologists and acne.

No way, Jose! I was in disbelief. And I thought of no more appropriate of a time to bring this up than over dinner with my husband, Donkey Kong, who maintains his wish to not have his real name in my column.

For my husband, a long time ago a grease monkey himself, would know all about this sort of thing. He, I thought, would surely calm my fears of a rat one day, maybe even now (eeeeeeek), being the only audience for my poorly executed singing in the car.

I was wrong, apparently. Mice, snakes, and "anything else small enough to fit" have also been known to take up residency under the hoods of cars, he said.

It happens often in the wintertime, or on chilly evenings, he added, when people's cars are the warmest thing around for critters who unfortunately don't have plush, down-feather winter coats.It can also happen, as in Smarty's case, if one often parks next to thick brush and woodsy areas.

(I am sure you are now asking: Why did I bring this up during dinner? My question for you is: Are you still eating breakfast over this lovely morning paper?)

Still in disbelief (or denial?) over the matter, I put to work my journalistic talent for researching random topics on the Internet and in the newspaper archive system. And I found that, yes, it happens.

For example, in the summer of '03, a woman in Rancho Bernardo reportedly abandoned her car in the middle of an intersection because a rat, to perhaps dispute the woman's choice of radio station, crawled out of her vehicle's air-conditioner vent. Lovely.

I also found that after the enormous wildfires in the fall of '03 burned acres of natural habitats for rodents, they decided that it was much safer to set up their new homes in ... this should not surprise you by now ... cars. And the auto shop workers-turned-exterminators reportedly made a bundle. How much is your car's interior electrical system worth?

Even as I pen this column I am absolutely disgusted. Goose bumps up and down my arm. My mouth in a constant state of "eeeeeeeek."

I'd pay 3 bucks a gallon any day, just as long as I didn't have to listen in dreaded horror for a rodent's squeak every time I got in my car.

Staff writer Louise Esola covers Oceanside schools. She can be reached at lesola@nctimes.com.

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