Catfood indeed

We love the Pilot. Love, love, love it. Of late though, it was trying our patience, having developed a tick on the front passenger side when the dash fan was place anywhere above 3 (of 7). As the seats have a heat function, this was not such a big deal, unless of course I'd made us late for church and we really, truly, quickly needed some mad defrosting. The fan's tick next decided to advance into the jet engine mode, which was off-putting, as I expected to have a fan shoot off the dash and do a bully smack on my face.

This Sunday we were not late for church (yay for firsts), and thankfully (sort of) it was a nice day and the windows could be down, because Phil nearly wretched gagging on what he called a cat food smell. Apparently, the slow thaw we've been enjoying, had slowly acclimated my nose to said cat food smell, because I smelled nothing, and thought he was a little crazy.

This morning, I told Phil that this whole tick/jet engine business had yesterday progressed to the point where on 1 the fan did it's new thing. So he prepared himself for a yucky day of tearing apart the dash and fixing things (with our fingers crossed that these things would not got the way of our recent washing machine adventure).

A very short time later, an animated Phil appeared in the kitchen, racing through the story of the dash. I prepared myself for the worst (I do not want to drive the Subaru ever again after the elk-hunting/elk scent mishap of '09). "Oh no," I fretted, "what was it? What is it? Can it be fixed?"

He held up something between pliers. Having the close personal relationship that I do with the dryer lint trap, I took the massive, yucky grey rainbow, oblong clump for the accordioned fiber lint trap mass it resembled. The pliers should have been my clue that this was no innocently dusty bit of lint.
"A mouse!" Phil excitedly declared shaking the pliers to make something waggle, "his tail was dried and was thumping the fan".

Catfood indeed.