Mags

I think it was about Tuesday that I started to notice a really nasty scent in our Yukon.  Since we had had my sister and her girls here for more than a week, I thought it was possible that maybe a dirty diaper had been left inadvertently in our car.  I went through the car, ridding it of all the boat/park snack garbage, and generally just cleaning out the car.  Nothing deep cleaned, just picked up.  Wednesday morning, when preparing to leave again for the park, I noticed that the scent was still there, getting worse.  I couldn't understand what it was, so I planned to take Clorox Wipes with us when we went to the pool and clean it out while the kids swam.  I cleaned that car top to bottom.  But not good enough, apparently.

Thursday, the smell was so bad, I made the comment that something must have died in the car.  I didn't believe my words, making the exaggerations a big joke.  But by Thursday night, I was ready to set the car on fire, it stunk so bad.  Randy decided that we were going to shampoo the carpets, since all other deep cleaning tactics had resulted in a car that continued to get more stinky.  Here's the part where I beg that you all realize that I like things clean, but sometimes I don't remember to do it as thoroughly as it needs.

When I thought Randy was done vacuuming, he asked me to help him raise the back bench, so he could get under it.  I always vacuum down the sides, but I never remember to actually lift the bench.  Ashlee crawled in the back to lift the appropriate levers, and when she did, that's when I saw it-- a dead, dried up mouse.  My fight-or-flight reflex had me gruffly whisper, "Get out of there!" at the exact second that Ashlee spotted the dead rodent and screamed an academy award winning blood-curdling scream.  I can laugh at it now, but at the time I was freaked out!  There was a DEAD MOUSE in my car!!!

We were a bit confused, though.  Yes, it had been hot, but we couldn't understand how it could stink up the car if it was so dried and obviously dead.  Trying to rectify what we were seeing with what we were thinking, we just accepted that the heat had dried it fast, and that the smell would go away.  However, Randy and I both kept commenting that we could still smell it behind the passenger front seat.  It was strong enough that Randy started to rip the car apart, throwing baking soda into the crevices when nothing looked out of place.  Man, it stunk so bad in that car!

Starting behind the center captain's chairs, he ripped off the plastic where the seatbelt is installed.  Then the plastic on the floor that houses the lights that illuminate when the door opens.  Nothing.  The amount of baking soda that Randy was leaving in those places still makes me laugh.  If a little baking soda deodorizes, imagine what a 13.5 pound bag can do to that stench!  When he got to the portion behind that passenger, I was convinced we weren't going to find anything.

Sitting in the center captain's chair.  Where the door connects, that cream colored plastic was removed.

   The cream colored plastic directly next to the passenger seat.

And then we did find something.  A freshly dead mouse, filled with plump, wriggling, feasting MAGGOTS!!!  With the plastic removed, the smell exploded 100,000,000 times over.  I cannot tell you how much I wanted to run.  And die from embarrassment.  HOW did it get in there?  WHY did it get in there?  We don't keep food in the car, so what induced it to crawl up inside in the first place?!  And why the heck were there TWO mice in our car?!  When did the other one-- the dried and obviously dead one-- die?!  Because I don't remember the putrid scent we had growing in that car from Tuesday to Thursday ever being present!!

Our car is FULL of baking soda.  We're leaving it there for a bit, in hopes that it will stop the scent that is calling mice to our car like the pied piper!  Oh My Gosh-- TWO DEAD MICE!!!  

We joked around with Ashlee about a nickname for our "red car."  Here's what we came up with: Maggie, short for Maggots.  "Mags" for short.  If I didn't love this car so much, I think I'd drive it into the Columbia River and give it a King's funeral of flaming arrows as it floated downstream.  My little Mags.

Wanna go for a ride with us?  Without our Caden, we perpetually have an empty seat.  It's yours, if you dare.

Please be our friends.