I don’t like snakes. I don’t care what kind they are, they creep me out! I’ve been especially leery of them since moving to the south. But I fooled myself into believing snake encounters only happen in the rural areas of the state. I, on the other hand, live very much in suburbia, nestled and protected on all sides by other homes.
I was swaddled so snuggly in this delusional blanket that when one of my neighbors expressed concern about a snake she saw slithering in her backyard, I wasn’t worried. Her house backed up to the creek. Mine didn’t. There was a lot of land and a road that separated my house from the creek. I was safe.
Then another neighbor told me she saw snakes slithering in the grass while she was mowing the lawn. Again, not worried. Her house also backed up to the creek. My house was happily landlocked, surrounded by other homes. There was no creek in sight and definitely no snakes.
Snakes, as everyone knows, are territorial and don’t venture far from their homes, which in this case was the creek. Even if there was an adventurous snake who wanted to go exploring, it wouldn’t get far. The curb was the invisible forcefield that prevented them from escaping. It would be too scared to cross it and crawl on the road. This was the crazy logic floating around in my delusional mind. And every night I went to bed snug in the lie snakes only lived near the creek.
But…there was that snakeskin I found on the curb near my mailbox…
The wind probably blew it over.
What other explanation could there be?
Then one day as I was returning home, I saw a snake slithering across the road. I don’t know how it managed to scale the impenetrable and imposing curb, but it did. Now it was doggedly making its way to my side of the street.
And I had a decision to make: If I continued on my current path, my car would collide with the slithering beast. It was a big snake! And it could be poisonous. There were copperheads at the creek but I had no idea what they looked like. The only snakes I can recognize are rattlesnakes and cobras and maybe even a water moccasin – if the illustrations in the Jungle Book are accurate.
I knew for sure I didn’t want a potentially venomous snake on my side of the road. Let’s be real, I don’t want any kind of snake on my side of the road. This was the safe, snake-free side. I knew what needed to be done, I screamed and swerved to avoid running over it.
I don’t know what came over me but I just couldn’t intentionally kill it, I was too squeamish for that. The only way I could muster the courage to do so would be if the snake were about to attack a person or a pet. In this case, it was doing neither. It was just crossing the road.
I watched as it slithered onto the curb and into my neighbor’s yard. I breathed a sigh of relief. Not for the snake’s safety but for the fence that separated our yards. As everyone knows, the best way to contain snakes and prevent them from getting out is a wooden fence. Yes, this was the nonsense I was believing.
As the months passed, the snake slipped from my thoughts, until one day when I was walking about my house minding my own business a movement on the porch, where there shouldn’t have been a one, caught my eye. I approached the window to get a closer look. Lo and behold, I saw a large snake slithering down from the trash can and onto our porch. It held my gaze for several seconds before it slithered off. Where it went, I had no idea, I couldn’t see that area from the window and there was no way I was going outside to find out. I was just relieved it was outside. And I was still safe inside my house because, as everyone knows snakes can’t get into houses.
Then several days ago, as I entered the laundry room out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, where there shouldn’t have been one. I peered a little closer.
And staring back at me was a diamond-shaped head and a flickering forked tongue. I screamed and quickly ran into the family room and climbed onto the coffee table. As everyone knows snakes are very territorial and if it established it’s home in the laundry room then that’s where it’s going to be. It won’t come into the family room or slither anywhere near the coffee table, that’s just nonsense.
As an added security measure I’ve closed the laundry room door because as everyone knows, closed doors do a good job of containing snakes and preventing them from getting out…