When I took my eight dogs out before bed last night, I opened the utility room door and slid my hand around the wall to turn on the light switch. I stood there stunned, as I tried to figure out what I saw wrapped around the cat's food bowl on top of the dryer (just a mere 1.5 feet from my hand on the light switch).
As the dogs poured into the room to line up at the back door, I stood frozen a step or two back from where I had been as I thought about what to do next.
I opened my mouth and let out an enormous "EEEEEEEEKKKKKK!"
[Let me just tell you now, that if "EEK" is your go-to solution to problems or scary situations, you need to find something that has some sort of thinking and action attached to it. I digress.]
I have no specific details to tell you other than, it was a snake. About 2 feet long perhaps, all black (you know, the glistening, glimmery kind {ick}). The head was the same cylindrical shape as its body (so not poisonous?). I do not know anything about snakes except to tread carefully, freeze and then avoid areas when I hear a rattle noise, and keep away from the colorful banded coral snakes. I foresee some research in this area in the near future.
After my ear-splitting scream, the poor creature could not slip away fast enough over the back of the dryer. Great, now it is in an inaccessible place behind the dryer.
Several questions and thoughts immediately came to mind at that point, in no particular order of importance except to show how my mind works quickly under intense pressure:
1. How did it get here?
2. How do I get rid of it?
3. How long has he been here?
4. What the hell is it, how do I confine him to this room and not worry about his visits to other living spaces, how the hell am I going to fall asleep in the future, what if the dogs find it, why haven't the dogs found it, what good is this old cat who LIVES IN THIS ROOM and can't take care of these things before they grow up to be problems, what's my neighbor's phone number, what can my neighbor do about it? [Again, I understandably digress].
These are all good questions, and I will spend some time inventing solutions in the next few days. For now, I stuffed a bath towel along the bottom edge of the door in the hopes that it would prevent the serpent from slithering out into the rest of the house. I sprayed vinegar on the edge of the towel since I understand that snakes do not like that. I also took the precaution of spraying vinegar along the bottoms of the edges to all the doors that provide entrance to my home.
Finally, my last thought as I lay there trying to fall asleep last night: a really good rule to follow in Texas is -- "watch where you put them." Do not put hands, feet, head, or any part of the body in any space that you cannot completely see into or along the entire length of. Never. This little rule has prevented painful scorpion issues, creepy encounters of colossal Texas-sized spiderwebs, and lately, scary snake issues.
Oh, the joys of living in the country!
Watching where I put them,
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