Vacancy at Mousecar Motel

I need to take a minute to mention a traveling companion that has been traveling with me for most of my journey. The trip would not have been the same without him, but he's still managed to miss every single photograph, blog post, or documentation of his existence at all. My traveling buddy is a mouse (deceased, 12/2/12). He's a little history:

My car is a 1994 Honda Accord. This was the year of Donkey Kong Country, Forest Gump, The Lion King. Your kids thought they were Jim Carey (not Drew Carey). Bob Saget was way too involved in your life. Our national sense of humor was more getting hit in the balls and less Gangnam Style. And "What is the Internet, exactly?" (At around 1:00 a guy steps in to help 'em out). It was a good year, to say the least, and this car is a great car.

I don't know who owned the car before my sister got it from a used car dealership when I was just a freshman in high school; It could have been a poet, a prince, pit orchestra musician, parrot-tamer, popsicle salesman, poop-scooper,  or perhaps a pedestrian-plowing pirate. Whoever it was rode for 100,000 miles in the ol' She-Wizard before the Hagbo clan could claim it as their own. And now, she's my beast of burden, as it were. But what's up with all the pee?

I'm asking the same question.

For some reason, this car has been home to generations of mice. I think they've tagged it like the Hobos of the Great Depression: "Food here,""Good Place to Sleep," "Policeman's house," "etc." But instead of scratches on a post, this is piss in my trunk. It's an olfactory signal, drawing in the likes of Fievel and his mouseparents, from Russia, across the United States, and into my Honda. Though I've managed to catch a few in traps, they always come back.

And so, even though my 94 Accord has the strength of Blind Melon, The Beastie Boys, and Rugrats, it cannot content with the powerful stench of mouse urine. The mice are not welcome anymore.

One mouse, who died today, has been with me on the road for almost a month. Every once in a while, he leaves tiny, foul tasting chocolates on my seat, what I assume he leaves as payment for his rent. He chews things up. He's simply a bad choice for a tenant.

Still, I'm kind of sad to see him go.