Our Van...

Our Van is my hero. It is a 12 passenger olive green beauty that has serviced our family faithfully for over seven years now. I remember wanting a van like ours as bad as a single man going through mid-life crisis wanting a Porche. It was my dream. At first, my husband was horrified that our family size had actually come to the point of needing this type of vehicle.....a real live clown car. Our Van has witnessed things, heard things and smelled things that no innocent bystander should ever have to endure. It is the moving location of many heartfelt conversations, heated ones too, and comments that were funny enough to make the books. At some point in the next year, due to another huge increase in family size, (a new baby, and two new adopted sons) I will have to hand the keys over to another proud owner. And I will look silly, because I will be crying. It will be like giving away a museum of memories. Surely I can add extra to the price of the van for the value of these? Don't answer, because I already know but don't want to hear it.

It has also been the mobile restaurant of many family meals on the run. And as a result, pieces of the family meal have gotten left behind in crevices, pockets and under seats ( and on rare occasions, the door jams). It is a major undertaking to clean the van well. Many times I have joked that our van could be the perfect eco-system for a small animal which could definitely live well fed for several weeks....yes, I was joking.

And now I'm not.

Yesterday, as we prepared to take the clan swimming, I opened the van to find an array of rodent turds on all the van seats. Looking upon the dashboard of our van, I saw what looked to be dried streams of urine and footprints of the offenders. The paw prints looked alarmingly large and much like a squirrel's. There were so many droppings, I feel quite certain that this was not the work of just one animal.....it looked like they had eaten a life time's worth of fiber and decided to have a turd laying contest. Here's what I do know. Someone won.

This morning, I woke up to more little torpedoes of poo on the van seats. Not only that, there was what seemed to be a chewed up pencil on the dashboard. But to top it off, there was chewed plastic chards on the floor where some worthless piece of fur attempted (and was maybe even successful) in chewing a hole into the wall of the van. I am envisioning driving our van down the highway with parts just flying off until we just are left with the seats and the chassis of the van....all compliments of our poop obsessed rodents with a teething problem.

I just need to admit it right? Isn't true that once you admit a problem you can then deal with it? "Hi, my name is Thea and my precious van has a rodent problem." Oh my gosh, I can't believe I said this. A rodent problem? IN A CAR??????

Sigh.

What a sad statement. A rodent problem in a car. Our car. Actually, it's kind of hilarious in a very demented way. My husband doesn't think so. And, sadly, this fact makes it even funnier.

We will have to deal with this some how. We may have to put traps in at night and see what we come up with. No more eating in the van and we need to start closing the doors after we come in from a trip. Many times, our doors remain open especially when our smaller doobies come in last and are too weak to shut the sliding door that is 20 times their weight.

I would love to hear if any of you larger families have had this problem. It sure would make me feel better. Even if you haven't, could some of you at least lie so I won't feel as pathetic as we probably really are?

Ok. Onward and upward. I will keep you updated and maybe we will have a couple of extra pets by the end of this fiasco......or a couple of mini pelts. :)