I recently began a new job, which I am very excited about. I won’t talk much about it here, but I can tell you that it keeps me very busy, and I travel a lot. Most of my co-workers are in the Seattle area, and I go to Seattle at least once a month for team meetings and events and whatnot. I fly into the airport, take light rail downtown, and go right through our old neighborhood. Once a month I basically fly back to my old life.

A few weeks ago, I had to take my truck down to the airport in Spokane to catch a flight over to Seattle. As I hit the road, I heard a high pitched squeaking. It was louder when I stopped at lights. I figured that maybe a belt was out of alignment again, or maybe my breaks were getting bad. When I got to the airport, though, I turned off the truck and realized that the squeaking hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had gotten louder.

So I popped open the hood, dreading what I would find. At first, I didn’t see anything at all, but the squeaking was louder than ever.

Check out the upper left hand corner.

And then I saw it. Huddled behind the headlight housing, there was some kind of rodent. Really large mouse? Small rat? Ground squirrel? Who knows. But it was terrified, and stuck in my truck, and I had a flight to catch. I wasn’t about to reach in there and get bitten. So I did what anyone would do. I broke up a granola bar, threw it on the ground directly under the truck, closed the hood, and ran to catch my flight. And had the weirdest check in story at the team meeting that morning.

When I flew back that night, the rodent was on the ground, nibbling the granola. I know I probably shouldn’t be contributing to pest problems at the airport, but I was tired and it was still an hour drive back home, so I left it there. The only thing I really cared about was that it was out of my truck.

And then I drove back home. It was nice a nice, quiet ride.