My buddy Lothar (…of the hill people…) has a Garage where he does oil changes and tune-ups and inspections and whatnot. He had my car last week and changed the oil and fluids and did my emissions inspection. When he dropped it off he popped the hood and said he wanted to show me something.
Guck mal den Schlauch da an. Have a look at that hose there.
I looked at the hose going from the radiator to the thing-a-ma-bob.
Yeah what about it?
It’s been chewed on by Madern.
What are Madern?
Do you know what a Weasel is?
Yeah.
It’s kind of like that but different.
Is it like a squirrel? mongoose? ferret? Chipmunk? snipe?
I don’t know what they are called in English. Anyway, they have been chewing on the hose and it could cause you to suddenly run out of coolant. Then your engine could overheat and then you got more problems.
Oh. That sucks.
Yeah but if you get some dog hair and some aluminum foil and then wrap the foil around the hose with the dog hair between the foil and hose, that will take care of it.
Uh-huh.
Well I did some googling and found out that Madern are Martens. This is what they look like:
Pretty cute, huh? Don’t let that fool you. They are vicious hose eaters. Dare I call them hosers?
Apparently they are also quite common in Canada. Coincidence? I think not:
