Car Gremlin!

This has been a hot, sunny weekend in San Diego. Friday night we attended the beautiful wedding of two of our favorite people.  Saturday I went to the farmers market, tidied up a little, and lazed about with Matt. Today was shaping up to be more of the same--the lazing part, I mean--and we decided to cruise over to Hamilton's for a sandwich and a beer.

A bit of backstory: My husband hates and despises the voice of the beloved American storyteller, Garrison Keillor. Early in our relationship, whenever we were driving and Mr. Keillor's sonorous-yet-folksy voice would begin to lilt from the radio, Matt would emit a shout/grunt/gasp of disgust and violently punch the radio off. This made me want to make a similar noise and punch him. But love conquers all, and now Matt just calmly switches off the radio when he hears the offending intonation. Thank you, baby!

However, we both enjoy folk, bluegrass, and other styles of music featured on A Prairie Home Companion, so even though it was mid-show when we got in the car, we kept the radio on to hear the tune as we drove to our lunch destination. The song ended about a mile from home, so Matt switched off the radio. And that's when we heard it.

Mew.

Later we both said that we thought we'd heard something outside, just as the sound cut out from our speakers. But we heard it again.

Mew.

We didn't say anything at first, I think we were both holding our breath.

Mew. Mew.

"Matt, that's coming from *inside* our car." 

"What do I--I'm pulling over."

After a little bewildered sputtering in the stopped car (while the piteous mewing continued), and a little careful listening, Matt popped the hood. By now you've probably figured out what had chillingly dawned on us: there was a cat in our engine.

When we first peered into the engine I was dreading what I might see. I mean, we'd been driving with a kitty in the engine, it couldn't be good, right? And there he was. A gray kitten, apparently stuck in the middle of my engine. Was its tail caught? Oh god, were its little back legs crushed or mangled? Would we have to put it out of its tiny kitty misery? But surprisingly, it didn't seem particularly distressed. The tone of its mewing no longer sounded frightened, but more like "Oh hey guys! Get me out of here now, okay?" So I starting poking and prodding down the length of its body that I could reach, waiting for a yelp or other sign of injury. But no, apparently I was just annoying, because the kitty crawled out from the middle of the engine, and made its way to the space between the engine block and the firewall.

So cute! But so stuck. We tried gently explaining that we could see the ground, and that if it would only look over there, s/he might figure out how to climb down. I grabbed it by the scruff of the neck to see if just maybe I could squeeze him through the narrow opening between the engine cover and the car, but no, too narrow and a bolt sticking out in the way.

By this time I was fielding facebook suggestions and searching frantically through my car manual for a way to remove the engine cover (Volkswagen's manual disappointingly does NOT address kitty issues. Major oversight, guys). Matt was calling animal control, who didn't know what to do and didn't have anyone available to send out. We tried to crawl under the car and see if we could grab him. Nope. Matt walked down to the 30th Street Cafe in search of a spray bottle of some type, that might be used to annoy the kitty into escape action. 

Bless the 30th Street Cafe! Someone there--I think the owner of either the cafe, the building, or a neighboring business--came back with Matt to take a look. He's an animal lover and former mechanic, and he just happened to have tools back in his office. 

After a futile attempt to remove the engine cover (seriously, what's the deal with that, VW?), he ended up disconnecting the washer fluid resevoir bulb. He didn't want to risk my warranty removing it entirely, but it gave us a little room to work. We took turns holding the resevoir out of the way and trying to maneuver the kitty to the far left corner of the engine, Mr. Cafe-Mechanic (shame on me! I've forgotten his name already!) succeeding in making sure its front legs weren't caught up on any hoses. Then I reached in and dragged the little darling around the left corner of the engine by the scruff of its dirty, furry little neck.

Victory! Rescue mission accomplished!

Engine Kitty was perfectly content to be held in my left arm and carried to the Cafe, where he was treated to 2 slices of delicious deli turkey. Somewhere between pulling over and pulling it out of the engine, Matt and I had realized we had to keep this ridiculous animal that had forced itself into our lives. So we took him home.

We figured it'd been traumatized enough for one day, so we didn't get a good look at its nethers to determine sex, but by its size I'd guess it's around 12 weeks old. Its tail is short and bent in half--but it doesn't seem to have happened in the engine. EK gives no indication that the tail is tender, and there is no blood. Weird!

Even though we wanted to keep it immediately, a veterninarian friend of ours recommended we take him to San Diego Animal Services. They'll scan it for a chip, on the off chance a family is missing their baby, but we put a "finders hold" on it, so if it isn't claimed we'll be able to officially adopt it (and find out if EK is a boy or a girl) in 7 days. They'll also spay/neuter it and give it shots, all for about 35 bucks--a much better deal than doing it ourself. Of course we're going to be out of town next weekend (another wedding!), so acquiring our baby might be tricky, but we're going to figure it out. For now I'm just praying and keeping fingers crossed that the kitty is healthy and unloved by anyone but us!