This is a story of how a squirrel met his fate in our rental car. There may be some graphic details, so if that bothers you please stop reading now.
We have once again tested Murphy's Law. If it can happen, it will happen to us. On our third day in Montana we hiked a beautiful trail that was about seven miles round trip. Afterwards, we checked-in to our new hotel and decided to head over the local farmers market for dinner.
When we got back into the car I asked my husband if he could smell the horrible smell, and he said no. The whole one and a half mile drive to the farmers market I kept asking him, and he kept saying he couldn't smell it. It was terrible, like someone smoking a bad joint! We grabbed some dinner off of an amazing food truck, walked around the market and then decided it was time to head back to the hotel and let our legs and feet relax.
This time when we got back into the car and turned the a/c on my husband almost threw up the smell was so bad! It finally hit him! We decided to stop at the grocery store on the way back to the hotel and when we got out of the car my husband could tell the smell was coming from under the hood. So, he did what most husbands would do and he popped the hood. As he was leaning over the engine he all of the sudden yelled "oh my God!!!". This is when he realized that a rodent of some kind had died under the hood, and it didn't just die, it met its fate in the fan.
I couldn't help but start laughing. I felt terrible for the critter but of all of the things that can happen, this happens! My husband went and broke a stick off of a tree to try and get the critter out of the fan, unfortunately this wasn't working very well. Due to the heat of the engine it was coming all apart. He even got his hand down in there enough to grab it and instead of pulling the whole thing out he ripped off a leg. At this point I am uncontrollably laughing, my husband doesn't seem to think it's near as funny.
We gave up and just decide we will have to tough it out for the duration of our trip, that is for the next six days!
The next day we just refuse to turn on the a/c and are grateful that it is fall in Montana and not summer in Alabama. We head out to do some sightseeing and just ride with the windows down, the weather is amazing so it's not a problem.
As we are about to leave this little town in the middle of nowhere I turn on the a/c and we both turn about every color of green that you can! It smells so bad you can just smell it walking by the car. My husband asks a young man working at the little store in town if he has a metal coat hanger and much to my surprise he does. When my husband explains why he needs it the young man says "I've seen a lot of things out here but this is a first".
My husband then begins trying to dig the poor thing out of the fan. A few minutes later he emerges with the body of what was once a squirrel. I will spare you the rest of the details, but let's just say it was not pretty.
I'm not sure that the a/c in this rental car will ever smell normal again. I'm just thankful it's not my personal car!