BAYTOWN SUN (Texas) 09 July 06 That was no fake snake in our hallway (Wanda Orton)
It happened three years ago and only now have I calmed down enough to write about it.
A sna ... sna... snake got into our house.
I’m OK now.
Really.
I’ll be fine.
It all started one afternoon when I was talking on the phone with a computer expert from our Internet Service Provider. When our words began to fade, it became obvious that my wireless needed recharging.
“Call you back later,” I said as I headed toward our bedroom where the phone was connected.
En route, I noticed a long, curving object in the hallway that leads to the bedroom.
At one time Skeeter had stationed a plastic snake on our back porch in an effort to discourage birds. Other than giving me the creeps, the “bird deterrent” served no other usual purpose. Eventually, I got rid of the hideous thing.
“Ah ha!” I thought. Skeeter must have bought another plastic snake and this one was longer and more realistic looking. He was playing a joke on me.
On closer inspection, I saw the “plastic” snake slither and it was no joke. Plastic is useful in many ways but it can’t slither.
It continued to slither toward the bedroom where Skeeter was watching a ball game (or maybe it was “Animal Planet”) on TV.
By the time I let out the first in a series of ear-splitting, blood-curdling screams, you’d think the channel had changed to that classic movie, “Psycho,” in which Janet Leigh screams her head off.
I fled from the house to our front yard, startling neighbors across the street with my non-stop shrieks of terror. “There’s a snake inside and it’s big ... real big!”
A friend visiting the neighbors immediately ran inside to help Skeeter apprehend the culprit.
The snake was in our bedroom but they couldn’t find exactly where. Snakes do tend to be sneaky.
The hunters finally gave up and decided to call 911.
They really didn’t have to call. I bet emergency personnel could hear my screams.
“I think it’s a rattlesnake!” I yelled, between screams. “It’s big! It’s in our house!”
I was an emotional wreck, totally.
And, to think, in my younger days I killed a copperhead single-handedly in our backyard in Lakewood. Well, actually, I thought the very still creature already was dead when I hit him over the head with a hoe, but when he showed proof of life, fangs and all, we had a real hoe-down.
I blasted the blankety-blank to bits.
But that was a long time ago. With age comes a certain amount of cowardice, and the day the snake entered our home, I didn’t volunteer for active duty.
In separate vehicles, two officers arrived. They looked like rugged Hill Country hunters/wranglers, not afraid of much of anything.
In no time at all, they cornered the snake under a chest next to our bed.
Wouldn’t you say that was too close for comfort? I’m getting the shakes again just thinking about it.
My oh my. What if I had not left the computer to recharge the phone...
Don’t even think about it.
One of the officers picked up the snake with a long stick.
“Oh heck, it’s just a bull snake. They can bite but they’re not poisonous. What do you want us to do with it?”
Skeeter suggested they take it out to a field and let it loose to kills rats.
I didn’t make a suggestion but if I had, I would have said, “Chop its head off and stomp on it, crush it completely, beyond recognition.”
The officer with the snake on a stick drove away, holding his “catch” out the window.
Many people, especially senior citizens, walk in our neighborhood. What if one of them had met up with the vehicle with the long snake dangling on a long stick, hanging out the window...
Don’t even think about it.
That was no fake snake in our hallway