Got snakes?

I wonder how many times the neighbors have heard me scream. Yesterday, Mickey Kitty was underneath the bushes near the back porch. I thought he had found a frog or a lizard because he was sitting there in the mulch with his paw on top of something. I leaned over the railing to ask him what he had found, he looked up at me, his paw came off his new-found treasure, and within two seconds, a small snake jumped up from the mulch and nearly landed on the porch between my feet.

One scream escaped me, and I ran into the house. So much for rescuing my cat from whatever creatures are around this property. My husband had just sat down to watch The Little League World Series--- the team from Pearland, Texas (!!!) was in the finals. My husband jumped up from the sofa at my first scream, and he was in the kitchen before the screen door slammed shut. Snake! Mickey has a snake! The damn thing jumped up and almost landed on the porch! Of course, my husband is thinking that "snake" means something three feet long. The snake that Mickey had was maybe 12 inches long, if even that. And it was just a green/yellow chicken snake, nothing too bad. (Is that me typing this?)

When my husband got into the yard, Mickey was still guarding his prize, which had curled up and was staring at my little black kitty. Come on, cat... make my day. I asked my husband if the snake could bite Mickey.... he said he didn't want to find out. Into the garage he went... out came the heavy garden gloves, the rake, the hoe. My husband asked me to get him a plastic container, telling me to put holes in the lid. (What?!) I came out with a throw-away container from organic cottage cheese, and I had quickly sliced a couple of slits into the lid.

Then my husband asked me to hold the container--- he had the snake hooked on the rake, and he was going to get it by its tail and put it into the cottage cheese container. (I swear, I am not making this stuff up.) I told him no way was I going to be holding that container, and I wouldn't have cared if that plastic cup had been the size of the Queen Mary. He asked me to just put the container down on the bottom step, which I did, then I took about three dozen steps backwards.

Into the red and white plastic cup went the green and yellow snake. My husband snapped on the lid and asked me to get his car keys. (What?!) He said he was going to re-locate the snake. (Honestly, I do not make this stuff up.) Before he got into his car, I told him to make sure the snake didn't get out of that container because if it did, I'd never set foot in his car again. I don't know where he released the snake, but I'm guessing it was up near the highway in one of the fields there. That's about two miles away from our house. Good enough, I guess. What are the chances of that particular snake finding its way back here to our porch?

Of course, that was a baby snake. I can't tell you how many times I wondered yesterday how many other brothers and sisters that little snake has... and are they all underneath those bushes? If they're out there, no doubt Mickey will soon find them. My smallest cat, and he has no fear whatsoever.

The kicker to this story...... when my husband got back to the house after re-locating the snake, he started to walk into the kitchen with that plastic container. "You are kidding me, right?!" I told him to toss that cup into the trash can, that it wasn't ever going to see the inside of my kitchen again. "Perfectly good container," he said. Not in my book, not after a baby snake was curled up inside of it. My husband put the container in the garage. He said he'll save it for the next snake. (How could I ever make this stuff up?)