Tundra rodents

My latest truck, a Dodge 2500 diesel, used to be a pretty nice rig, until, of course, I bought it. Which is to say that the guy who owned it before me took good care of it for close to 20 years and then I got a hold of it and within four months a wayward piece of firewood had put a big dent in the side and now it’s basically a work truck.

“Work truck” is the excuse I use for anyone who jumps in and looks at all the dirt and food wrappers inside.

I meant to keep the truck clean, really I did, but once it had that big old dent from that 100 mile-an-hour chunk of firewood, my passion just sort of drifted away to other things in life, like spending gobs of cash on hiking boots that never really fit right, only to learn that sneakers are very, very comfortable.

But enough about me, this truck story isn’t about my truck at all, it’s about a friend’s truck — a brand spanking new 2017 Toyota Tundra.

My friend called the other day to say that her brand new truck was home not to just a car seat and animal crackers from her young boy, but was also home to mice.

Not just a couple of mice either — an honest to goodness God-fearing family of ‘em, like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

There was a poppa mouse and momma mouse and at least four little cute young ‘uns. My friend knows this because they ate her young son’s knit hat, chewed up his pacifier and then got into a box of feminine products, which, apparently, also make a pretty good mouse nest.

My friend knows all this because she caught what she hoped was the whole damn family in mouse traps. So far she’s caught six mice — two in the backseat, three in the front and a sixth in the ashtray.

I am not making this up.

Now granted, my friend lives in the woods and mice are known to inhabit cars, but generally not brand spanking new ones — or so she thought until we started rooting around the Internet and found out that some of the newer rigs from some car companies have switched to wiring that is now soy based.

There’s some evidence that the new wiring and other products actually attracts mice, so much so that lawyers in California have even filed a class action lawsuit on the matter (I am not making this up).

My friend has had no problems with her wiring, but she was still taking her brand new truck back to the dealer to get the cab sealed up, which she hopes will solve the problem. (This, as you can imagine, is not covered by the warranty, which expressly excludes mice living in the glove compartment on a feminine napkin).

Meanwhile, there’s another lady with a Volvo in another state who set rat traps around her rig, because they had moved in.

The traps didn’t work, so she was going to try coyote urine.

The trick, of course, is convincing them to pee just on the tires.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.