I hate snakes.

I hate snakes.  I know that they serve a purpose of some type in the scheme of nature, but I don't have to like them.  I have a husband and daughter who find them quite fascinating and will pick up bull snakes whenever possible to admire. (If it hadn't been for the fact that I was there when she was born, there are times I question whether or not Kari really has some of my genetic makeup!)

Hubby and I moved to this home 20 odd years ago.  The second winter we lived here, we had a January thaw for a few days, and then, as January does, it became cold again. I had been out doing chores and had come in to the house to start fixing our evening meal.  I went into the bathroom to wash up (we have a tiny bathroom), turned around, looked at the floor, and saw a bullsnake  staring back at me.  I know the thing was realistically about 18 inches but for me, any snake is a minimum of 10 feet. I did a double take because I had to be imagining things.  I wasn't.  I snuck past the reptile, went into our bedroom, emptied out the wastebasket onto the floor, went back to the bathroom, and put the wastebasket over it.  I then went to the kitchen, grabbed a cast iron skillet, and placed it on top of the wastebasket. The next course of action was to go to the living room and sit on the couch with my feet up on it contemplating where I was going to sleep that night because this reptile had probably brought friends and family with him.

When Hubby came in, I told him to not take off his coat because he needed to get rid of the snake in the bathroom.  He, naturally, questioned my statement.  I calmly repeated it.  He echoed my statement.  I, not so calmly, repeated myself again. By this time, he's realizing that he had better play along because it was apparent that I had lost my stability somewhere.  He went into the bathroom, came back, looked at me, and said "You know what?  There's a snake in the bathroom."  That's when I became unglued.

He got rid of it although it was very unhappy at having been trapped. The only thing that we could come up with was during the fall, it crawled into the basement through a foundation crack before Hubby found the crack and repaired it. When the thaw came, it warmed up and was looking for a way out.  You'll never know how long it took before I could walk into our bathroom without sticking my head around the door to check for snakes first.  My campaign to move didn't work.

I hate snakes.

Later.