Rats!!

Editor's Note: Commedienne Pam Stone writes her column for The Tryon Daily Bulletin twice each month from her office in the "Unabomber Shack" on her Gowensville farm. Want a chance to respond to this column? Go to Pam’s blog at www.tryondailybulletin.com.

Paul and I are fortunate enough to have "Depression era," European, parents who have always warned, "If you can't buy it with cash, then you shouldn't buy it."

'Nuff said. With the exception of a mortgage, I try my very best not to finance anything. Even in a High School economics class, we were shown how many thousands of dollars more a car costs when you finance it instead of paying for it upfront. Later on I learned that a new car depreciates nearly 30% the moment you drive it off the car lot. Truthfully, I've never owned a new car in my life. And I always pay cash.

I say all of this to give myself some sort of self-righteous superiority while admitting that, therefore, it's a big deal if Paul and I are driving a car that was manufactured in the same decade in which we are actually living. Right now, our newest car is a 1998 Honda. It looks quite good: no dings, a few scratch marks from Bonnie and Rosie leaping against the driver's door (wretched curs) and just a little sap from parking under the Pin Oak trees. Having just turned 140,000 miles, we figure we've easily another 60,000 miles before we have any sort of trouble. The fact that we live four miles from town and, frankly, never go anywhere, means the odometer will turn 200,000 miles in the spring of 2018. We can rest easy in the reliability of our little car.

Or so we thought.

Driving my mother back from a recent doctor's appointment, I noticed the air conditioning wasn't as effective as usual. There also seemed to be a weird vibration occurring when I depressed the accelerator as it labored up hills. I met Paul at home with the awful news: "Pepe is unwell."

Yes, Pepe. Well, don't you name your car? Our others are Arnold, the dually, and Sammy, my beloved 1992 Isuzu Trooper that has been parked near where the woods skirt our property for around two years, now. We named Sammy after our favorite Thai restaurant in Los Angeles. The employees always picked up the phone with such exuberance when we called to place an order for delivery: "Hello, Sammyyyyyyyyy's!"
This flourish, naturally, was aped by both Paul and I when we would discuss what we wanted for dinner: "Do you want Greek, sushi, or should we call Sammyyyyyyy's?" And even though the Trooper is Japanese and not Thai, it just seemed to fit. It's a blessing we don't have children. We might have named our first, Subway.

So Pepe, after a fruitless administration of cold compresses and Vick's Vapo Rub, was admitted to Stott's Garage overnight, for observation. The list of potential problems plagued our sleep: "Transmission, timing belt, valve job........." Any unexpected cost also means Paul has to put off getting a new table saw, again, until next month.

At 8 a.m. sharp, the phone jangled. Paul and I eyed each other nervously. Surely they would have called during the night, if..... if......

Paul snapped up the receiver barked into it several times before slamming it down and rushing out of the room.

"What is it? What is it?!" I cried.

"Wrong phone!" he yelled from his office. "It's my cell phone that's ringing."

Connecting just in time with Stott's, we were given the unexpected news. It wasn't the transmission, timing belt or valves.

It was a rat nest.

Rats, not mice, but rats, had built the equivalent to Trump Tower beneath the water pump. Evidently, another rat had begun an offshoot to White Oak Plantation near the fan belt. Well, you know Polk County: they'll approve anything. I'm terrified their next move will be to annex Sammy.

So all's well that ends well. And I can't really blame the rats. We love Pepe, too.