I am not a big fan of snakes.
Now that I'm older, they startle me.
After working on the pristine cruise ship, I decided to beautify my yard.
The only snag was,
I hadn't done any yard work in the front yard for twenty years
and it looked like hell.
One sunny afternoon the first week of August, I came down my mom's wheelchair ramp
and hung over the railing to get an idea of
where to start working the next day.
The ground was moving.
Why was the ground moving?
I stared at the unruly weeds and saw a snake.
Well, that was okay. One snake.
Then I looked more closely and saw two.
Finally, I counted ten!
No big deal I thought, I'm brave, I can deal with it.
The next morning I forgot all about them and
came sauntering down the ramp to my mini van
and nearly stepped on one!
Sassy little snake with attitude.
It gave me the look I give my kids when I'm
sunbathing in my lawn chair with a Jackie Collins novel
and they try to disturb me. It didn't even hurry off.
I had to stomp at it before it would it slither down between the wooden slats of the ramp.
That's when I noticed the hole.
Turns out that left undisturbed,
the snakes had made a nest under the wheelchair ramp.
So now that I had inadvertently created a snake condo,
how on earth was I going to get rid of them?
Kids!
Best form of cheap labor ever created.
Luckily, Troy hadn't found a summer job
and needed a way to fund his Arizona Ice Tea addiction.
I hired him to catch and relocate the snakes
up to Wallace Creek Swamp Park.
He was good at it too!
Every afternoon when I'd be working in the yard, when he'd hear me screaming,
he'd dash out and fill up his pillowcase with the slimy little friends
and drive them off to the park for a mere two bucks a snake.
Best investment in my mental health I ever made!
Now I had only counted ten snakes that first day
and two weeks later, Troy had caught thirteen,
so I was feeling pretty cocky about
working in my ugly little yard.
Then a teenage snake showed up and I yelled for Troy
and he made short work of catching it and taking off with it for the park.
Then I saw her.
The BIG MOMMY snake.
Three feet long and wide around as a roll of quarters.
She was heading for the hole under the ramp.
I fought my fright and grabbed my rake,
ran up the ramp and leaned over the railing to block her path.
Where was Troy?! He'd been gone twenty minutes!
We were at a stand off.
Four times she approached the ramp as the sun was lowering.
She wanted to go to bed.
I carefully fended off her attempts by leaning over and moving the rake.
She was getting crafty and starting to approach from the sides.
After a half hour she backed up and coiled up.
I was ready, gripping the rake with two hands
leaning over the railing staring her down.
She sprang at the rake and attacked it!
It all happened so fast!
When she hit the hard green plastic rake at full force, it was at a slight angle,
and she shot right up the rake handle at my face!
I screamed and threw the rake and it landed
with mommy snake under the pine tree in the weeds.
My adrenaline was making me shake all over.
The van!
Troy was back!
He got out and I begged him to catch her and make
one more trip to the park. He did.
Teddy and Carlos were with him in the van
and as he pulled out of the driveway
I could see him passing the snake bag to the
back seat for Teddy to hold.
As the bag brushed Carlos's shoulder in the front
seat, I could hear screaming from the
van as it went down the road.
I'm not the only one afraid of snakes.
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