One Day, on the Hood

Yesterday’s typhoon was intense—the wind was especially fierce. It’s been years since our area issued an evacuation advisory, so I was really surprised. I expect things to remain difficult north of the Kanto region until tomorrow, and I hope the typhoon passes with as little damage as possible.

Then, the other day, I got an email from my husband, who had already left for work.

“There are cat paw prints all over the Panamera Turbo’s hood! Gently dust them off with the duster we use for the Panamera!”

“Wait, that can happen?” I thought. But when I went to look, there they were: cat paw prints. More than ten of them, in fact. I tried to remove the dirt with the duster as he’d asked, but it was dirty with sand and dust, so I ended up smearing more grime onto the hood—and the cat paw prints were still there.

And Then It Got Worse…

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I tried rubbing the marks off with a cloth. They came off, but I left faint scratches across the hood.

Oh no… (ー_ー)

When my husband got home that evening, he told me, “Never wipe dirt off a car with a dry cloth. First, use a damp cloth to loosen the dirt.” I’m sorry… I really am.

Fortunately, the scratches were only in the coating, and my husband was able to wipe them away that same day. The hood looked good as new. What a relief…

Back to those paw prints: this never happened with our previous Panamera, apparently because it was white. (It was Carrara White.) Our current Panamera Turbo is navy blue, and the theory is that when sunlight warms the hood, a cat comes over to bask in the warmth.

“Next thing you know, the cat will be sharpening its claws on it! If it does, I won’t let it get away with that—I’ll pick it off with a machine gun!”

My husband rarely shows his feelings, but he was visibly angry and worked up. And who could blame him? We’d bought the car new, and it had only been about ten days. If a cat had scratched up the hood, we’d have been furious.

We Bought a Cat Deterrent

So my husband did some research online and promptly bought a cat deterrent. Here it is.

ユタカメイク GDX-M ガーデンバリア (ミニ) 【1年間の安心保証】

created by Rinker

ユタカメイク(Yutaka Meiku)

• Amazon
• 楽天市場

It normally costs ¥10,000, but Amazon had it for just under ¥5,000. It also had nearly 2,000 reviews. Unfortunately, the rain set in and the typhoon arrived soon after it was delivered, so we couldn’t install it right away. We should finally be able to set it up soon. I’ll see how well it keeps cats away and report back in a future post.