" . . . and watch out for snakes!"

I find myself issuing that command far too often to my four-year-old son. It usually doesn’t come as he is venturing outside to play, but instead when he is in the Laundry Room/Craft Storage & Production Room. This multi-purpose room is where I spray, scrub, soak, and wash my little artist’s garb endlessly to remove the marks left by “washable” markers, paints, and crayons and is also the room where I saw the first snake. 

It started out with one of those moments when you see something out of the corner of your eye – perhaps a cord or hose – and you think it is a snake or something else potentially dangerous thatdoesn’t belong in your house. However, this time as I turned to see what it was (so I could rationally tell my body to relax and stop the sudden surge of adrenaline), I realized it really was a snake! This being the first time I had encountered a snake inside my house, my reaction wasn’t exactly calm and collected. It involved running, a scream or two, a slammed door, a hasty rescue of my one-year-old (who incidentally was in no real danger), and a frantic phone call. Of course the snake planned his break-in (uh, I mean “her break-in” . . . read on) while my husband, who is the usual Critter-in-the-House-Dealer-Wither, was a few states away on a business trip. Whether the snake followed a mouse in or not, I may never know, but having had a couple mice invade our house in the past, we still had some glue mouse traps set out, and luckily, the snake’s head was stuck in a trap. Once I realized the snake was impaired, I put it into a trash bag, and my father-in-law later killed it. Unfortunately, I think it was a mama snake. My husband has since found a baby snake in another mouse trap in the garage, and I saw a baby snake that was a miniature version of the laundry room snake on our front porch.

The week following the first snake incident was the worst – I kept “seeing” snakes everywhere, but as time goes by I think I am getting closer to normal. I can enter my laundry room with a quick glance instead of a complete stop and thorough inspection for anything that doesn’t belong. I don’t jump quite as high when I see a cord or shoelace on the floor. I’m not quite as squeamish when digging to the bottom of a basket of craft supplies or under a pile of dirty laundry. But, try as hard as I may, I just can’t refrain from calling after my son, “. . . and watch out for snakes!”