Snake stories

[Outlaw99]

My snake story runs a bit differently.

It was a beautiful summer afternoon, and I had just achieved the holy grail of suburban fatherhood: fifteen uninterrupted minutes of post-lawn-mowing peace in front of the TV.

Then, the basement unleashed a sound.

It wasn't just a scream; it was a blood-curdling, glass-shattering, non-stop siren of pure terror that would have easily drowned out a nuclear air-raid drill. My wife, a woman who views mice, shrews, and voles as harbingers of the actual apocalypse, was in the basement.

I vaulted off the couch, sprinting downstairs expecting to fight off a home intruder, or at least a rabid raccoon. Instead, I found my wife camped out on top of the clothes dryer like a shipwreck survivor on a life raft, head in her hands, vibrating with fear. She was trying to speak, but because I am not fluent in Deafening Siren, I couldn't understand a word. Fortunately, her frantic, furious pointing directed my eyes toward the dark abyss behind the washing machine.

I braced myself, peered over the side, and beheld the monster.

It was a pint-sized garter snake. The poor fella had taken a wrong turn through the sump pump pipe and ended up thoroughly, helplessly stuck to a rat-sized glue trap. In my wife's defense, at a panicked glance, the long, graying trap-bound silhouette did look a bit like a rat's tail (despite us never having had a rat in the history of the household). To her, Cthulhu had risen from the drain. To me, it was just a very embarrassed reptile.

I evicted the laundry-room leviathan, naming him Jake. Standing in the yard with a trapped snake, I did what any modern rescuer does: I Googled it. A few minutes later, armed with a bottle of my wife’s nail polish remover (and the intense prayer that the acetone wouldn't dissolve the snake), I successfully un-stuck him.

Jake slithered away into the grass, entirely unharmed, likely seeking a therapist to deal with the hearing damage he sustained from the dryer-top siren.

I’m pretty sure your wife and I are related somehow

 

[Hammerxc]

I’m pretty sure your wife and I are related somehow

She's terrified of spiders too. Every fall (as outdoor temps drop) I get the shrinking siren in the shower, because of a spider walking around).

 

[Outlaw99]

I’m good with spiders, mice, meth heads, and armed criminals; just not snakes

 

[Hammerxc]

I’m good with spiders, mice, meth heads, and armed criminals; just not snakes

It probably helped that I grew up in an area where garden snakes were common. As a kid I was initially scared of them, but after being exposed enough and figuring out they were harmless, they became invisible (paid no attention to them).

Now a large snake, that would get my attention ASAP, as that's unusual to me.

The last snake that got my attention was a very large bull snake on a small lake with many cabins. A healthy mice population had some examples of bull snakes looking like future pythons (in my minds eye).

I know they are harmless and helpful, but damn, they are thick.