Snake Crisis

Let me just share what happened here in Housekeeping Hell the other day, maybe Thursday. My older daughter Beulah came in and grabbed the pellet gun, following some commotion out on the carport. I inquired in a motherly voice, "What are y'all doing?"

"Oh, there's a snake in this walnut tree. Karina saw it. I'm just going to try to make it move down out of the tree." Karina is my daughter's roommate, and she probably has the best eyesight in the house. I thought that maybe I should check out the activities on the porch. There was considerable squawking from a blue jay going on, and I realized that I had been hearing it for a long time.

We were all out on the carport, observing this big old wad of a snake wrapped around the walnut tree. I was trying to imagine what it would look like unwadded and unwrapped, crawling rapidly across the carport, or perhaps launching itself through the air. My daughter was shooting pellets at the snake, the bird was squawking, and periodically, one of the four of us would scream a bloodcurdling scream. The snake rearranged itself, and looked at us with its snake face and snake eyes. I yelled, "Whooohoo! It LOOKED at me!" I ran inside the house, deserting both my daughters and Karina to attend to reptile charming. Karina was already observing from inside the van, anyway.

Finally, the snake decided to go up the tree and go across the top of the carport. My younger daughter, Pearl, yelled, "It's bleeding! It's bleeding out of its MOUTH!" Well, this was exciting. I went back out on the carport to check on this reported blood. All of us were just hanging around, discussing other times I have deserted my children to snakes, and Pearl said she heard a noise. I looked up and saw a snake head come down the front side of the carport! This snake had crawled across the whole roof in maybe four minutes! Great screaming ensued, plus some point-and-click photography. The snake crawled down the corner of the front of the carport and headed across the front of the little porch. He had left a trail of blood down the wall, grossing everyone out. "EEEWWW." "I didn't know snakes bled!" Etc. Just like the Amityville Horror or something. Snake blood flowing down the walls...

The last I saw of the snake, its tail was going off the side of the front porch, very slowly. Beulah, the snake hunter, apparently saved us all. However...

My husband Drake came home after a hard day of fishing. After his usual narrative about the fish that got away and why it got away and how someone else caught a huge fish, I told him we had a little snake trouble here. He took the large flashlight outside and looked around with his night vision eyeballs. He did find the snake on the other side of the porch, probably lonesome for his favorite walnut tree. Drake took him down the hill to a little creek down there, where the snake undoubtedly told all the other snakes incredible stories about why snakes should not climb the hill to the terrible house up there. Oh, well.

Drake's main comment was that he did not know Beulah knew how to shoot the pellet gun! His surprise almost made him forget to say the snake was a king snake or a rat snake, both friendly varieties we should not shoot with pellet guns. Men always tell you that the snake in question is a "Good" snake we should not hurt. When the men are not around, we are free to let all hell break loose and shoot the shit out those creepy beasts. Eeewwwuu.

I hope your day in your own Housekeeping Hell does not include snake blood.

Helpful Housekeeping Tip:  A great deal of water pressure is required to remove snake blood from the outside of a house.  It is best to avoid this problem if at all possible.

How I Feel About Housekeeping...

I have to start out saying that I feel like writing to Ellen deGeneres and asking her for help, or maybe that guy who fixes up the houses for pitiful people. That show that is really sickening, where a crowd of people yell, "MOVE THAT BUS!" and then everyone cries...I hate shows with fake sentimentality and floods of tears. Yuck. I prefer the murders and clues that include blood spray. That should give you a clue about how I feel about housekeeping. Somebody always has to clean up the damn blood spray after those guys measure it, etc. Somebody has to clean up the blood spray here, too, but only occasionally.

We live in an old, small, crumbly house out in the country. Now, that might sound idyllic to a few idiots in the world. I have to say that there are not many muggings here, not many people stealing your purse, nor anyone hijacking your old, rattling vehicle. I would probably just give them the keys and walk on home, only to find that I had given them my house key, too. Then I would have to break in the damn window yet again, and my husband, who cusses a whole lot louder and with a much worse vocabulary than I, would have to repair the window with some plexiglass someone swapped him once for a battery cable. He'd finish off the job with part of a Dr. Pepper carton and some duct tape. The whole house is actually a miracle held together with duct tape and dirt.

Helpful Housekeeping Tip:  If you think you should be doing something associated with housekeeping, go begin a new blog.  The feeling will pass quickly.