Minty fresh mouse traps

After the oil change folks cleaned out my car’s air filter, where apparently the country mice were partying heartily, I drenched it in peppermint oil to drive them off—who knew those hitchhiker mice don’t like mint?  So instead of vacating the premises, they merely moved abodes. I had a sleekit timorous mousy living in my emergency brake sheath. I dumped peppermint oil down the shaft too and my car smelled like a strong breath mint with vague undertones of mice urine. My car reeked with the toxic odor of mint oil, so strong that it made my eyes water, and I couldn’t use the air conditioner or the heater, let alone, drive the car without leaving all the windows open. God knows what it was doing to my lungs. The mouse ate through my food stashes, chewing through Ziploc baggies and canisters, and then it moved onto my art supplies which made for colorful poop scattered at both ends of my car. Then it began to shred the car insulation and paper to make a nest. I removed several nests, but she was persistent. The last thing I needed was a mouse raising her family in my emergency brake sheath. It came down to this, it was either the mouse, or me. I was tired of being a mouse chauffeur, not to mention, unpaid landlord. Besides, I could not tolerate the grassy odor of a pissy rodent living in the close confines of my car. Especially during the heat wave. I feared that the wiring would be next. I tried all manner of snap-traps and glue traps. She didn’t like peanut butter, and deftly removed the nuts and grains that I left as bait. Nothing worked until the exterminator gave me huge extra-strength glue traps meant for rats. It was a case of location location location. I tried several spots in the car, nothing worked. Eventually I found the sweet spot under the passenger seat next to the emergency wine bottles. I admired the sleek beauty of such a tiny being capable of wreaking such havoc in my car. And then I did the coup de grace endgame with my shoe.