Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I Think it's Time to Get a Cat



Every time I've opened the hood of the truck in the last 2 weeks, I've seen something like this not-so-little critter. One time I opened the fuse box and saw 4 babies.


Yesterday I re-attached the battery cables in preparation for driving the truck to the shop this morning. Tried to start the truck and.... nothing. I canceled the rides I had set up and scheduled a tow truck for the morning.


After I had gone to bed, I was woken up by Maggie going nuts barking, and some strange sounds outside. I went to look, and saw that my truck was running, and the headlights and running lights were going on and off at random intervals.


I was TERRIFIED. I thought that someone was trying to steal the truck. Got dressed in the dark so not to alert the intruder. Worried about who was going to call 911 if I got hurt. Eventually (seemed like forever but was probably 2 minutes), I realized that the truck was empty.


It had started by itself - with no keys.


I made a halfhearted attempt to disconnect the battery cables before I decided that it was too dangerous. I tried putting the key in so that I could turn it on ... and then turn it off. Worried about an electrical fire, I called the insurance company to get it towed NOW, instead of in the morning.


The tow truck came at 1:30 am, about 1/2 hour after the truck stopped of its own accord. It had run for 2 hours. Now the truck is at the shop, where it belongs. Mr Shop Man is pretty unhappy that the problem is worse than I let on when I made the appointment two weeks ago. I'm unhappy about that too. If I were to use my incredibly strong root-cause anlysis skills, I think we should both blame the mice. I don't think this repair is going to be cheap.


I don't like poison or traps as options to get rid of the mice (which are in the house as well), because of the possibility that either or both of my dogs will get harmed. I think it's time to get a cat. A mouser.

3 comments:

  1. What a weird happenstance! You say you were TERRIFIED . . . I think I would have fainted dead away. How 'bout more than one cat? Do you have any kind of a barn or out building where "barn cats" could live comfortably? Not that an indoor cat wouldn't be a good idea, too, for the critters that are trying to live with you inside but seems you need some to patrol the outside property and get the rodent issue under control.

    Here, Kitty, Kitty.

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  2. I do think 2 cats is better than one. I love cats! I don't have a barn, but I do have an enclosed porch, a woodshed and another shed. I really would like one of the cats to be outside, hm. Can a cat live in a doghouse?

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  3. Our cats spend as much time inside as outside both summer and winter -- probably more time outside. I account it as having gotten brothers that they have been healthy and happy for so many years. They hunt as a team and they've never come home with so much as a scrape. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for trespassers including dogs. The advantage of the team hunt, as we've witnessed on occasion, is that they will separate and then pounce simultaneously after having terrorized the dog for a bit. That said, my mother-in-law's dog has a truce as did the poodle we had for a while. Lately we've discovered that they actually supplement their diet with their prey while we thought they only brought us trophies.

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