Driving My Mice Away

So, a while back my mom and I were driving. I don't know where we were going, and it doesn't much matter. The important thing is that as we drove under a rickety old train bridge a snake flung itself on my car.

I responded calmly and pointed out to my mom in a shriek well below shrill that there was a snake on the car. She had heard the thump but tried to explain it away as "just a twig or something less alive - definitely not a snake."

However, even my calm and sane mother couldn't deny the snake sitting on my windshield wipers when it stared at her and waved its little tongue at her. For me, it was almost like her acknowledgment made everything more real. There WAS a snake on my car, and it WAS going to crawl under the hood, and it WAS going to come through the air conditioner vents at us.

Not wanting to over react we continued to travel at 30 to 35 miles per hour with the snake slithering around for another eight miles or so. Finally deciding we couldn't take anymore of it poking it's head under the hood, we pulled into a church parking lot where my mom deftly maneuvered the snake off the car with the cunning use of her hands and a stick. I hopped around like a maniac with a racquet ball racquet. Initially I think I had equipped it for protection but in hindsight I wonder if I was hoping for a pick up game of racquet ball.

Anyway, my mom put the snake down and it slithered away, not even giving us a backwards glance or a snide comment. I mean he had just landed on my car and caused a general panic. A slow-burning, minute panic, but a panic nonetheless. It seemed like the snake had owed us something.

And that was it. I hadn't really thought about the entire incident until just a couple of days ago when I was driving again.

I had just dropped the kid off at my mom's work and was making my getaway by pulling slowly in front of a fast moving car, which I was watching with great interest in by rear-view mirror. When I was finally able to re-direct my attention forward there was a mouse crawling across my front window.

I didn't really think too much of it until the thought hit me: there's a mouse walking across my car window. I hit the windshield wipers to no effect and called my mom to rehash old times.

Presumably the mouse fell off the car, which I saw him almost do once with a look of absolute terror on his face, or he crawled under the hood so he could come through the air conditioner vents at me. Judging by the way I jumped when the straw wrapper on the floor brushed my leg I'm inclined to think I believed the second option a little bit more.

My question, however, is: where was the snake when I needed him? It's been almost a year since the great snake debacle, but I needed the snake to go after the mouse. If this trend continues my car is going to turn into the old women who swallowed a fly.