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| Juvenile Southern Black Racer Photo by Mike Leffler at Flickr |
There was a snake in the house yesterday. I walked down the hall to my bedroom and there in the doorway: SNAKE!
But it was a tiny, cute snake. Nothing to freak out about. Unfortunately, he slithered under my dresser before I could do anything. (Like I was actually going to do anything!)
Well, I rolled towels up and put them against all the sides of my dresser except at the side near the doorway. Then I barricaded a path that would force him out of my bedroom, away from the back of the house and toward the front. Then I cracked open the front door and went to work.
First, I planned to stick my back scratcher under the dresser and, I don’t know…scoot him out. But when I went to the far end of the dresser, there he was! His little head peeking out from under the towel. I went to grab him (sure, sure) and he disappeared again. So I started knocking against the dresser and sticking my back scratcher up under it, moving it gradually toward the other end.
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| The now infamous back scratcher of terror! (It’s retractable!) |
Nothing.
I found the poor thing later, curled up in another towel and managed to scare him back into hiding under the guise of GRABBING HIM! (You should know that at no time did I ever really make such a brave effort.)
I am not a snake whisperer. Obviously.
Finally, I decided I would just have to let him come out on his own. I closed the front door, but I kept peeking down the hall to see if there might be a little snake slithering down it. Like, maybe he just knew the right way to go. But nothing.
My Hero (hubs), arrived home for lunch and I told him about the snake. He got the flashlight and we started removing the towels, unrolling them, fully expecting the little snake to drop out. Nothing. The snake was gone. I was so sad. He was now at the mercy of not just a house with very little to eat beyond spiders, but also…the CAT!
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| The cat, Squeakers (from which the snake was never in any real danger) |
BUT…
As I left my bedroom, there he was! In the hallway! Going the opposite direction I meant for him to go!
“There he is!” I screamed, scaring him into Anthony’s room. I went into action, pretending that I might actually grab at him, basically forcing him to take refuge behind one of the bookcases. Egad.
We removed everything from the bookcase and Hero told me to block the other side.
“But he might bite me!”
“What will upset you most–being bitten, or letting the snake die in the house?”
Point taken.
I did my best to block the far end of the bookcase with a…wait for it…BOOK! (I am so brilliant.) Then we tilted the bookcase away from the wall and Hero did the Heroic thing! He caught the little bugger.
“He is not happy,” Hero said, carrying him to the door.
I got to watch as the little snake slithered into the bushes out front. I’m pretty sure it was a juvenile southern black racer. We have a lot of black racers around here.
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| The Hedge Last known whereabouts of the snake |
As Hero left for work again, I “joked” that he better not run over the snake on the way down the driveway. Ah, ha ha. Not funny.
So, when Hero came home from work for the day, he said, “There’s a little dead snake on the driveway!”
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| Proof that there is no dead snake on the driveway. Cracks and debris, yes. Dead snake, no. |
Yeah. We’re so funny here. It’s a regular laugh riot all day.
Anyway, that’s my Florida story for today.