I don't like snakes. I know some keep them as pets, but I can't see it. You can't pet a snake and it won't chase a ball. But for those who prefer pets that belly crawl, I'll meet you
halfway: You're welcome to come to my yard and collect all the snakes you can carry. I'll even loan you a wheelbarrow. Because any snake I find has a life expectancy in direct proportion to however long it takes to pry
my husband from his recliner, arm him with a shovel and stand at a discreet distance while he pounds the nasty thing into Jello.Our most recent snake encounter took place when a neighbor saw one in our backyard and
called to warn us. She said she wasn't sure, but thought it might have bitten one of our cats, Houdini, a silvery male with a squeaky little meow and a very suspicious nature.
I immediately implemented our Snake
Contingency Plan. First, I unmolded my spouse from his chair, where he was trying to break the all-time record for most number of remote channel changes during a football game beer commercial. Then I hustled him into
the backyard where we met our neighbor, who pointed out where the snake had slithered. Sure enough, it was there -- a copperhead -- and in a foul mood. My husband dispatched it and returned to his remote control workout
while the kids and I looked for Houdini.
We found him under the deck, but he refused to budge. So the kids positioned themselves on one side and I stayed on the other and we herded the hapless cat back and forth. We
chased him under the garage, back around the yard's perimeter and back under the deck again, all the while yelling and screaming as though we were on a cattle round up. He wasn't impressed.
I called Mom, since he's
really her cat, thinking perhaps he'd go to her. Then I blasted my belligerent husband from his chair. In the meantime, the cat wedged himself under the farthest recesses of the deck in a spot area so low he had to
belly crawl, just like the snake. My hubby, thwarted once again in his effort to achieve remote control immortality, decided a blast of water from the hose would flush him out, so he grabbed the hose and let the cat
have it.
As a rule, cats aren't fond of water and Houdini's no exception. He hauled buggy from one side of that deck to the other, looking like a possum fur coat that had been left too long in the rain. Meanwhile the
kids and Mom and I yelled and ran around, trying to grab the hapless kitty. Finally, Houdini said "to heck with it" and climbed back under the deck and simply there sat staring at us as if we were a bunch of
lunatics.
Having lost much of his world record remote momentum and wanting to get it over with, my now cranky husband had us guide him to Houdini's location under the deck, so he could remove some of the
decking boards and scoop him up. Mom and I laid on our stomachs under the edge holding flashlights because dark had settled in. We'd yell, "To the right!" and my husband would run to the right, then, "No, to the left!"
and he'd shift left. Everytime he'd take up a new position, he'd pry up another board -- but there was no cat to be seen. Finally we had to concede: the cat had won. He simply wouldn't come out.
Until the next
morning, that is, when a very clean and obviously unbitten Houdini showed up for breakfast and gave me the dirtiest look I've ever received. You know, I get the feeling I've seen that look before. Something about it's
kind of familiar. I can't put my finger on it, but I associate it with a clicking sound, yeah, that's what it is. The kind of sound a remote control makes, you know? Just give me a minute and I know it'll come to me.
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