A Smoking Picnic Table And A Dead Mouse

     Here is something that happened on this date in 2014:

    A group of people in the Robson Valley had organized a meeting about garden seed saving.  They set up a meeting in Dunster, so I decided to go.  When I got into my rickety old green truck, I right away smelled a dead mouse.  A few days previously I had first got a hint of that scent, and I had assumed a mouse crawled up in the trucks ventilation system and died.  The smell wasn’t too unbearable so I drove on out to Dunster.    

    It was a very hot and sunny day (30C 86F) and it got hotter as we sat around in the sun.  In the middle of our circle was a picnic table with food and drink waiting to be consumed.  About midway through the meeting, Johnny jumped up from his chair and said something about smoke.  He grabbed a gallon water jug that was sitting on the table in the sun and moved it into the shade provided by an umbrella.

    It was then that I saw what he had seen.  The jug with its crystal clear water had concentrated the bright sunlight into a beam, which was projected onto the surface of the picnic table.  The table top, like a piece of paper under a magnifying glass’s sun beam, had started to burn.  Smoke was coming out of a small charred spot.  This was an amazing thing that I had never seen before, so I took the photos below.

    After the meeting, eating, and a look at some of the nearby gardens, I walked back to the truck ready to drive home.  Because it had been sitting in the sun with the windows shut, climbing into the truck was like walking into a hot oven roasting a rotting mouse.  After opening the doors to air out the cab, my olfactory’s got used to the odor, and I began my journey back to McBride.

    As I drove down the highway, I got an idea:   “Maybe if I turn the vent fan up to ‘High’, the smell of the mouse will quickly dissipate.”

      It didn’t quite work out that way.  I turned the knob up to the highest level and the fan began to drone, then suddenly, the drone sound changed into a rapid thump, thump, thumping.

    Immediately, my nostrils were filled with the most putrid smell imaginable.  I thought I was going to faint or gag.  I could hardly breathe.  Luckily, I didn’t gag, instead I immediately turned off the fan and rolled down the windows.

    Here is what I think happened:  The bloated dead mouse corpse was lying in the vent by the fan and putting out a faint odor.  When I turned the fan to High, the corpse got sucked into the fan which split the rotting corpse open, freeing all the putrescent gases fermenting inside the body, and they got blown out all of the vents into the cab of my truck.   It was horrible.

    With all the windows down and driving at highway speeds, I managed to make it home.  I left the windows of the truck open overnight, hoping that soon all the mouse body parts would quickly dry out and cease to smell.  

    It was a memorable afternoon. 

        View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca