The Snake and I

When Hannah was little, she got the whole snake thing started. At first she was happy catching some grass snakes, then she moved up to her first "pet" snake, a Tangerine Honduran Milk Snake. I have never understood the attraction, but, over the years, it has infected almost all of our children and my husband.

From humble beginnings, this snake thing grew until it was completely overwhelming! Kregg used to take the kids out in the middle of no where in the middle of the night to HUNT them!! Yes, they would go tromping around with flashlights and snake hooks trying to find "pretty" snakes. As horrible as that sounds, it was great "Dad Time" with the kids. You can just imagine all the adventures they had driving the back roads of west Texas in the middle of the night! Yes, they saw lots of rattlesnakes.

Anyway, from one pet snake the collection grew to dozens and dozens. For a couple of years they were INSIDE MY HOUSE!!! Each had it's own box and Kregg put them on a big shelving unit in our study. I tried to continue my life and act as normal as possible, under the circumstances. But it wasn't always easy. I had friends who wouldn't set foot inside my house because they knew "they" were in there!

The first time we ordered "pinkies" (frozen baby mice) in bulk, the overnight delivery guy came to the door.  I wasn't thinking and so I actually said out loud, "Oh, the mice are here." 

The poor guy said, "Mice?!!" I thought he was going to drop the box. 

Once again without thinking, I said, "Yes, they are for the snakes." 

He, with a horrified look on his face, said, "SNAKES?!!" Never saw that delivery guy again. 

When the collection outgrew the study, they finally earned their own room in the shop, complete with climate control! Just owning them wasn't enough, though. Kregg and the kids even hatched snake eggs!! Can you imagine my horror?

Well, when they would catch a snake in "the wild," Kregg would keep it in a plastic box in our bedroom to make sure it wasn't sick, or carrying parasites, before he would introduce it into the general snake population in the shop. It was okay for us to be exposed to whatever they had, but he sure didn't want to spread it to the other snakes. (It's not really like we could catch anything, but it sounds pretty pitiful, doesn't it?)

At the time of this story, there was one large snake, a Trans Pecos Rat Snake, in a box in the floor of our bedroom. They had caught it a week or so before, and it hadn't graduated to the snake room yet. It was a particularly mean reptile. When I would walk into my room, it would strike at me. Being in that plastic box, there would be a big "thump"!  It scared me to death every single time!! I didn't like him and he sure didn't like me! I couldn't wait for him to move out of my bedroom and go live with his snake buddies!

We were in the process of repainting our study and actually putting books in it after the snakes moved out. All the boxes of books were stacked neatly in a corner of our bedroom behind the door, awaiting their new home. Well, on the evening of my near death experience, Kregg was going to take Hannah, Mackenzy, and Caleb snake hunting. Elizabeth and Rebekah were little. I thought to myself that, after they left and I got the two babies in bed, I might actually be able to think in complete sentences for a while. That is one of my favorite past times. 

Well, Kregg and the big kids left and I got the baby girls down for the night. I was going through the house straightening things up a bit and I walked into my bedroom. You know how you sometimes see something out of the very corner of your eye? Well, I saw something, but for a split second I refused to believe it. Just at the moment I walked into my room, the back half of that snake was disappearing into the stack of book boxes!! I knew, instinctively, that I should reach out and grab it, but I just could NOT do it! This was one of my worst nightmares! A big, mean snake is loose in my bedroom and I am all alone!! It was too late at night to call any of our friends to come rescue me. Besides, I don't know if I have any friends that actually love me THAT much!

I consoled myself with the thought that I at least knew where it was. As bad as this situation was, it would have been much, much worse had I walked into the room to an empty snake box, having no idea where it was hiding!! I immediately shut the doors and grabbed two big towels. I rolled them up in front of the doors leading to the bathroom and the hallway to keep it from getting out of our room. Then I sat on my bed shaking, never taking my eyes off the pile of boxes.

I called Kregg.  I was not happy. 

He had just gotten to their hunting spot two hours away! I told him the snake was loose. 

Do you know what he said?  "Anne, I can walk you through how to catch it."  I almost died!

I couldn't believe it! I told him that was not going to work. I just couldn't do it. Besides, they had all the snake hooks (long steel rods they use to catch snakes without having to touch them). I told him he was just going to have to come home. He wasn't happy and I know he didn't understand why it was such a big deal, but I couldn't see any other alternative. He said they would start back in a few minutes. I sat on the bed to wait and watch.

It wasn't long until it hit me: With the doors shut and me closed up in my room, I couldn't hear the babies if they cried.  With a sickening sense of realization, it dawned on me that I was going to have to catch that snake. I couldn't leave my room because then I wouldn't know if the snake moved! I couldn't wait for Kregg to get home two hours later!

Be calm. Think of a plan. 

The only thing I could come up with was to use a towel to try to capture it so I wouldn't have to touch the thing. I could throw a towel on it and then grab it and throw it back in the box. The flaw in my plan is glaringly obvious now, but I sure didn't see it then.

I got a big towel and walked over to the pile of boxes. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up again just remembering that moment. I slowly slid one box away from the pile. No snake. I grabbed hold of another box and slid it over by the first. No snake. I kept dragging boxes away from the pile until I finally saw it! It was curled up vertically between the wall and the box next to the wall. And it was looking at me!!! You have to understand: this snake is over 4 feet long and I am absolutely terrified. Still, I'm thinking, "I have to do this!" I grabbed hold of the box, made sure I had a grip on my towel, and slowly started sliding the box away from the wall. 

I don't know what I expected to happen at that moment. I guess I thought it would just lie there and let me pick it up. Silly me. As soon as I moved the box, the snake came straight at me!! I started screaming at the top of my lungs and threw the towel over it. This is where the flaw in my plan smacks me across the face. The snake wasn't going to just lie there under the towel and let me pick it up. I knew I was supposed to grab it behind the head so it couldn't bite me, but it's head wasn't where I thought it was, and I grabbed it right in the middle of its body!!! I'm still screaming! The snake comes over the top of the towel right at my face!! Somehow, I ran across the room and threw it, towel and all, into the plastic tub. Kregg is lucky I didn't just open the back door and throw it outside. I snapped the lid on and ran to get all the weights off the weight bench to pile on top of the lid.  It took me several minutes before I could breath again!

Crisis over! Catastrophe averted. 

I called Kregg and said, "You don't have to come home. I caught that snake. But, here's the deal:  tomorrow ALL THE SNAKES ARE MOVING OUT OF THE HOUSE AND INTO THE SNAKE ROOM! Okay?!!

He said, "Yes, honey."

I guess, in the end, it was worth it because that was the end of the snakes in the house!! 

Until last week . . .

Elizabeth caught a snake in the backyard.  A baby Desert Kingsnake.

Here we go again!!