There are snakes, on the floor!

[yendi]

Didn't get to sleep until way too late (thanks to playing with the PS2 and watching the "Theme Park" episode of Monster House). So would have liked to sleep in, but at 9:30, Elayna burst into the room to tell us that there was a snake in her room.

I shot out of bed quicker than Samuel L. Jackson could shout "Motherfucker," and checked it out. Sure enough, a snake, right by her bed. About six inches long, and just lying there, but a snake, nonetheless. No, I didn't look closely at its markings. It was probably a garter snake, but could have been a small ratsnake or something else. While shadesong opened the door, I grabbed a towel (because I had no idea if it really wasn't just a tiny poisonous sucker, although it clearly wasn't a rattler, copperhead, or water mocassin, which are the big ones to worry about around here), grabbed the sucker, who was not happy, and ran with it to the door to throw it into the driveway.

And now, I'm wide fucking awake. And in need of coffee. But our house is snake-free (hopefully).

Comments

it's "anaconda" meets "home alone"

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

So, in the sequel, Samuel L. gets off the plane, having rid it of snakes, and gets in the car to go back to his house where... there are Snakes In The House!

Coming Summer 2007.

Re: it's "anaconda" meets "home alone"

[yendi]

Actually, that's the third movie. #2 is Snakes in the Limo!

[kizlj.livejournal.com]

Aiee. You are a cooler-headed adult than me. I woulda screamed.

[yendi]

Had Elayna not been around, I don't doubt I would have. It's against the Daddy Code to scream in front of your little girl unless a limb has been severed.

[lupaloo.livejournal.com]

That's really cool! You go, Croc hunter!

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

'There's a motherfucking snake in my motherfucking room, motherfucker!'

[yendi]

I'm telling you, if I had Sam's number, I'd have called him then and there and asked the motherfucker what to do.

[lupaloo.livejournal.com]

p.s. I meant to also say that I'm sorry that it got you up. That doesn't sound like the most fun way to wake up.

[yendi]

Fortunately, the coffee is handling that. :-)

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Well done!

I just hope the dancing badgers don't keep you guys awake the rest of the night...

[yendi]

Nah, it was already morning.

[shugenja.livejournal.com]

But look on the bright side. Think of the tragedy that would have ensued if you'd not had the absolute perfect icon for this situation.

[yendi]

Too true!

[sistermaryeris.livejournal.com]

A snake in the house! OY!

I freak at spiders!

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

.....You are much better parent-y people than mine, but I think that kind of happens by default. When I had a bat in my room, my mom just said to shut the door so it wouldn't go into the rest of the house and go back to sleep. O.o

[kizlj.livejournal.com]

My sister & I learned early on that our parents were not sensible people if woken up early on weekends. When my sister's hamster died (I was 10, I think), we barged into our mom's room at around 5am and tearfully announced that Snowflake had passed away. Mom groggily replied "well, hamsters do that" and fell back asleep.

Proper funeral rites and memorial tributes commenced around 11am, when our parents were conscious again.

[jmfunnyface.livejournal.com]

Wow, you're much braver than me. You gave Steve Irwin a run for his money. Hell, you didn't get bit in the nose or the eye, so I guess you're even one up on him.

[yendi]

And I replaced the word "Crikey" with "Motherfucker!"

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

'I hate snakes, Jock! I hate 'em!'

[yendi]

Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

There's one to save for the grandkids. Though you might want to edit out the "motherfuckers" for the wee ones.

[yendi]

Well, I'm sure that by the time that generation comes into being, "motherfucker" will be about as offensive as "damn" is to us.

[tww1fa]

Once while watching a late night (2-3am) showing of Streets of Fire I noticed the cat looking interestedly off the edge of the bed - when I went to see what she was looking at, there was a young opossum hissing up at her.

I woke up my dad, we corralled the thing and locked it in the downstairs bathroom, and went back to bed. My dad took it to the lab the next day.

Advantages of having two biologists as parents - few critters creep me out :)

[yendi]

And the important question -- was the cat pissed that you took away a potential toy?

[dr-nebula.livejournal.com]

Only 6-inches long? sheesh - even if poisonous a snake that size would have a hard time penetrating the skin.

My grandmother's place was out in the wilds of western NY. One morning, they had a 5 foot long timber rattler in the damned bathtub. It apparently had crawled through the window which had been left open.

Timber rattlers are the most dangerous snakes (due to the volume they inject) in this country and they kill more than all other species combined. Yeah, my grandfather wasn't amused.


My advice - don't move out to the country - I get incursions like this all the time (snakes, scorpions, black widows -etc).
:-)

[aurora-lamour.livejournal.com]

I love the icon! I miss B-5!

[cyber-pagan.livejournal.com]

a snake? We have snakes as pets, we love snakes. Seeing a snake in the house would not be a reason to panic, and it sounds as though hubby knew enough to identify it as a non-poisoness one. Fairly easy to do since there are only four species of poisoness snakes in this country, rattlesnakes (several varieties), copperheads, Water Moccasins (Southern US), coral snakes (very rare and generally docile). These are all easy to identify, which leaves everything else (a lot of species) as harmless, if possibly a bit smelly (many snakes use odor as a defence). Hearing about a small, probably harmless snake being harshley grabbed and thrown out, almost certainly injured, and now possibly dead simply because it was a snake (a competely irrational fear) is a horrible thing to read. It affects me no differently than if you said you found a puppy in the house and shot it with an uzi. If you remember my 'opossum' posts, we kept getting invaded by a small opossum, which eventually I had to relocate to a wooded area several miles away. Even though this was a rather nasty animal that threatened my family with potentially severe bites (and maby a disease or two), I was very careful to capture it and move it outside without hurting it. I sincerely hope you are not instilling a deep irrational fear of snakes into your daughter, thus perpetuating the wanton destruction of these extremely useful and mostly harmless species for yet another generation.

[dark-blade.livejournal.com]

Dude. (You might be female, but I use that regardless of gender.) He didn't shoot it or chop it's head off with a hoe, he pitched it outside.

My parents DID have to do the decapitation by a sharp yard tool thing a few times this summer.. discovered a nest of copperheads. They live in the city/suburbs, and have a four year old. Most the neighbors also have small children. Garder snakes are fine, but sorreh, copperheads right up around houses have got to go..

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

Oh for god's sake. "Harshly grabbed and thrown out"? "Almost certainly injured and probably dead"? That is a LOT of conjecture, as well as being inflammatory and reactionary and gfenerally troll-tastic.

I am a snake lover. But I can completely sympathize with grabbing the snake in a towel and tossing it out the front door. It is a wild animal and therefore unpredictable. Note that, even half-awake and in crisis mode, he did not attack the snake or attempt to harm it in any way - he chose to swaddle it in a towel (for his protection and the snake's) and toss it outside.

Now. Snakes are pretty tough. I can't imagine that tossing a grass snake out the door would injur or kill it, judging by snakes I have known and interacted with. I've never tossed one out the front door, but I have seen them fall from a high branch with no injury as well as dropping from the high side of a terrarium to a terrazzo floor four feet below, also to no ill effect.

I can understand and sympathize with your feeling that snakes should be treated well. Your method of communicating this message, however, needs work. Save your hyperbolic attacks for someone who has actually done or expressed some ill will toward a snake.

[yendi]

Well, to be fair, I forgot to mention the mongoose that we keep half-starved in the yard. And I did, just like Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target, knock the snake out with good swift jab to the face.

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Mother fucking good job!

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

EEK. Well done you!

I am now capable of coping with motherfucking mice (if dead, anyway) and motherfucking cockroaches and motherfucking spiders, but snakes would make me run shrieking even if my son was around!

[azurelunatic]

Instances of La Cucharacha over a certain size make me go all girlie. I prefer them ground-based, and not chillin' on the ceiling, where they might FALL AT ANY MINUTE AND SCUTTLE SOMEWHERE LIKE ON/IN MY BED.

At least motherfuckin' snakes don't motherfuckin' fly. (Unless they're on a plane.)

[nicoletta.livejournal.com]

Man, I keep chasing down corn snakes in our yard. I can never catch them. I can come over and be your snake guard. ::nods::

[rubian77.livejournal.com]

Props to you, my friend, for not just stomping on its head. I salute you!