Day of The Snake

Gather ’round children. Yesterday, we’d been working on the back yard all day, trying to get it in shape. I was warming up the grill to grill Missy’s birthday dinner. I thought the dogs were outside with me, but, I could neither hear, nor see them, so I went wandering towards the end of the yard to see if they were there. Never, in a million years, was I thinking of running into any kind of maneating wildlife in broad daylight. Well, let me tell ya, friends and neighbors, that’s how they get ya! Everything from psycho clowns, to maneating wildlife, they get you when you least expect it. So, here I am, I’m walking around the corner of the garage, expecting to see a miniature chorkee and a teacup chihuahua, when, what did I come face to face with? It wasn’t a chihuahua. Now, I’m assuming, everyone reading this, has seen retreads laying in the highway, that’ve come off of semi tires. Well imagine one of those retreads, all in one piece, then, put the meanest looking head on one end that you can think of, and that’s what I ran into, that’s right, the biggest, meanest, blackest…………snake of some kind, that you’ve ever seen. Neither of us moved! Me, because I couldn’t, and him, because he didn’t feel the need. (He didn’t seem at all impressed with me) all I could think was, “I have to get Missy, she’ll love this!” And by “love this”, I mean “put the house on the market, and vacate the premises immediately!” By the time I got Missy around there to show her her surprise, (did I mention that it was her birthday? Well, it was.) the snake had slithered halfway under the door of our shed. So, while I’m trying to decide whether to let it go on in to that mess, where I knew it could live forever, only to attack me some dark night, as i rummaged for some tool or other, or grab it, and fight it out, out here in the open, where my chances of outrunning it were marginally better, Missy lets me know, that she’s no more impressed with me in this situation, than the snake had been. “Nope” I thought, “I can’t let him get in there, he’ll have too big an advantage” so I grab him by the tip of his tail, hopefully, behind his pooper, because, not only will snakes bite you, they’ll also crap on you. So, I grab the thin end of this things tail, thinking I’m going to just sling him right out in the yard, where, hopefully the chickens will rip him to pieces. ( did I mention that I have chickens? And ducks? No? Well I do. But that’s a whole other story) Anywho, none of that happened, because, it turns out, for something with no legs, snakes get pretty damn good traction, and they’re strong! “Go get shelbie” I tell missy, through clenched teeth, as I lose the tug o war with the snake. Now, for those of you who’ve ever been in a fight, you know that sinking feeling, some people call it fear or dread, you get when you’ve punched somebody in the face as hard as you can, and they don’t fall down, or run screaming for their mommy, and you realize, you’ve made a horrible mistake, from which, there’s no turning back. That’s exactly the feeling that’s starting to take hold in my brain right now. So he goes ahead and crawls on into the shed, as Shelbie arrives. (She digs this kind of thing) ” we’re going to have to unload this shed, at least until we get him out of here.” I said ” I don’t want to find him on some dark night.” So I start unloading the shed very cautiously, because, at this point, I’m still not sure what kind of snake it is. I know I’m getting close, by all the hissing and rattling. I finally get everything cleared away from him, so I can get him out of here (did I tell you that Shelbie won’t let me kill it? Well, she won’t. I’m starting to wonder why I told missy to get her in the first place.) (im even starting to wonder if she’s even on my side.) “can you tell what kind of snake it is?” She asked, as this was the first time she’d seen the whole snake. ” well” I said, keeping my eyes on the snake at all times, ” it’s not totally black, so it’s not a Black Snake, I don’t think it’s a water moccasin, this far from water. I think I’ve read about a species of cobra that don’t have hoods, called the “hoodless Cobra” they’re responsible for wiping out entire villages in Africa. Oh yeah, see the random gold spots behind its head? It’s a Hoodless Cobra, stand back!” “You sure it’s not just a rat snake?” She said. “no, it can’t be anything that harmless, stand back” “im going to need something to hold this thing down with while I grab it” I thought. By the way it was hissing and striking, it probably wasn’t going to hold still, for me to grab it. All I could find long enough to keep me from getting bitten, was a paint roller on a stick. (Never a fishing pole around when you need it.) Like any good ninja/ gunslinger, I grabbed what I had, and prepared to deal. He took off for cover, I went for the kill, using the sharp end of my roller, imagine my dismay, at the realization that, there’s NOT a sharp end on a paint roller! So I’m holding him down with the roller, looking for something to lift him up with, that maybe he’ll wrap himself around while I get him out of here. Thank God missy threw my bokken (a wooden version of a samurai sword, used for practice.) out here, and not in the trash, like she was going to. I stuck the bokken under his midsection, and lifted him up and took off. Well, what do you know? He wrapped himself around tha sword and rode as we walked him across the street to let him loose. On the way we passed a neighbor, walking, I’ll call him “Albert” (because I don’t know his name, I’m not really sure he’s a neighbor either, now that I think about it) Albert says “that’s a big Rat Snake,you got there.” I said, “no, I think it’s a…….”ah, what the hell, I don’t want to cause a panic. ” yep, sure is.”