Friday is only two days away, and it is time for me to get busy with the blog! No one will ever know how much I enjoy writing my stories. Enjoy!
If any of you belong to the “Next Door” group app for your neighborhood, you know there are all kinds of topics that are discussed and photos posted. I think the most discussed topic is snakes. Some of the replies to the posts are funny. For instance, there was a picture of a King snake posted. Someone wanted to know what it was. One of the posts suggested it was a cobra. Another post suggested that maybe this person had mice in their garage. The snake wanted into the garage to eat the mice. Very entertaining.
Yes! snakes have a tendency to freak us out (as the kids say). Nice to see, but don’t come to visit for four weeks!
My late husband traveled all the time, so I was left alone with our boys. There are no regrets on my part about this scenario. It seemed that everything happened when he was away. Well, I could either sink or swim—I chose to swim.
I was awakened at three a.m. one night, by what I thought was one of my three cats swatting at something, maybe a roach or other bug. We lived on the east coast of Florida with many different bugs.
Turning on the light beside the bed, I soon saw a very pretty, 18″ snake, slithering up the wall. The snake was yellow with brown stripes, and it blended in well with the pretty gold paint! My first thought was to turn off the light and go back to sleep, as maybe this wasn’t really happening. Was I dreaming?
What to do! What to do! Being so very early in the morning, I did not want to wake the boys — needless to say, it would have been a fiasco (which would come later that morning). I left them sleep and decided to call 911. This is an emergency right?
An officer arrived at our home, soon after I called. When I left him in, my first question was, “Do you have your gun”? We went back to the bedroom and carefully proceeded to look for the unwelcome visitor. Our hunt was unsuccessful — no snake. The officer left. I went to sleep on the sofa, vowing not to set foot in the bedroom to sleep until the snake was found.
The next day we all got up for school. After we were dressed, and were seated at the breakfast table, I told the boys what had occurred at three a.m. We trouped back to the bedroom and proceeded to look for the snake. I had a very large shopping bag, and my one son had a machete. We were set to get this critter out of the house. My instructions were to find the snake, sweep it into the bag, and take it outside and let it go. Simple enough right? No snake slaughtering!
We found said snake curled up under an 8 x 8″ base on a Snoopy telephone. The body was sticking out just a tad. I told the boys to get ready to scoop the snake in the bag with the machete after I very carefully lifted up the phone. My one son decided to try to play hero, and chop at the snake. He missed and the snake disappeared.
This day would involve research on what kind of snake we had in our house. Was it a non-poisonous or poisonous snake? I was informed by wildlife control that if the snake was poisonous we couldn’t stay in the house. After describing the slithering visitor, it was decided that this was a rat snake, which is not poisonous. It was still a snake, so the hunt was on.
I went to get my haircut that week, and was telling my beautician about the snake episode. She referred me to Anthony, who worked at the salon, because he had a boa constrictor as a pet.
During one of my inquiries about what to do about the snake, I was advised by the local pet shop to get a frozen mouse, cover it with a paper towel, and put it in the middle of the room. The logic was that the snake would eat the frozen mouse and get lethargic. Yes, they really did sell frozen mice. “We” could then catch the snake and put it outside. I am still not quite clear who the “We” were. I did not want to be included as part of the “We”. Being part of “We” is like being part of “They”.
After explaining all of this to Anthony, he said the frozen mouse would not work. I needed a real mouse. So I went back to the pet shop and bought this cute, little, white mouse. I felt a bit bad, as I very responsible for its destiny.
Anthony had instructed me to borrow a bird cage for the mouse. I borrowed said cage from one of the teachers at my school. With live mouse and birdcage in hand, I went home. Worrying a bit about the poor little mouse’s welfare, I put water and Kix cereal in the cage. He had to eat and drink right? Everyone is entitled to a last meal.
The bird cage was put in the bathroom until it was time to go to bed. When the boys and I went back to the bathroom that evening, the mouse had gotten out of the cage and was running back and forth on the shower bar. Enough was enough right? I yelled rather loudly to catch the mouse and let him go outside. The boys did.
The next plan to get rid of the snake was to put mothballs in the closet and the bedroom. Still no snake.
It was about four weeks later and my husband was home, but getting ready for another trip. He slept in the bedroom, but I refused due to the slithering visitor. I decided to sleep on our TV room/porch sofa. No snake in there right?
During the night, I was again awoken by one of the cats “swatting” at something on the window ledge above the sofa where I was sleeping. I turned on the light, and the snake was back. I got up, raced out of the room, and shut the sliding glass doors to the TV room/porch. My husband told me we could deal with it in the morning. Again who was the “we” he was referring to?
The next morning at the breakfast table, I was telling the story about our early morning visitor. My one son said, “Mom no one sees the snake but you”. My husband’s suggestion was to get a bug bomb and put it on the porch. It seemed no one really believed me. I really did not want to kill the creature. Sooooo we left the sliding glass doors shut, the boys and I went to school, and my husband left for another trip to somewhere in the world. Okay I can deal with the snake.
When we came home from school, the boys and I decided to try to find the snake on the porch. Yes, it was discovered. Somehow we got it wrapped up in a small blanket, opened the door, and threw it over the fence —- suitcase and all!
Again, I must reiterate, that this really happened. The one thing that keeps going through my mind is how the snake survived in my house with three cats and two boys for a period of four weeks? Perhaps it liked video games, loud music, Monday night WWF wrestling, and cats.
Sometimes you believe you live a boring life, but when looking back there is always something that happened that was anything but boring.
This true story is dedicated to all my neighbors in Peachtree Corners that belong to Next Door!
Blessings from The Blogging Grandma
PS Look for a new blog next Friday! I love sharing my crazy stories — that really happened.
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