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Snake in the Grass June 26, 2020

It was during regular business hours and I was on the phone with someone of some rank, even though it was someone I knew well, and we were discussing Important Business that Mattered. 

My son flew into my room without knocking and yelled, “There’s a giant snake in the yard.”

My son, mind you, is several inches taller than I am, and is old enough to vote and be drafted.  Not to gender stereotype or anything, but I failed to see how there being a giant snake in our yard had anything to do with me, what with me being indoors and completely useless when it came to wild critters, and I told him so after politely asking my Business Phone Call Companion to hold on.

“But the snake will get the chickens!”  He yelled.

“Ok,” I said.  “But this seems like something you should be talking to your father about.”  My husband is not the least bit fearful of snakes.  One time, during a BBQ at our lake house, Mike saw a black rat snake as large as he was in our pile of sticks we used for kindling.  Unlike a normal person, who would simply warn our guests to stay away from the pile of sticks, Mike walked up to the pile of sticks and grabbed the snake.  He held it up by its head so that it stretched its whole six feet and walked towards the porch.  We all screamed and scrambled over each other as the crazy man I married laughed like a lunatic and the snake whipped around. 

Jacob left the room and I went back to my phone call.  The next thing I knew, my husband was calling me, which was odd, since he was home.  I hauled myself out of bed and walked into the house.  I saw Jacob and Mike and several long tools in the front yard.  I stepped on the front porch, asking my call to hold on.  “Were you calling me?”

“Yes,” said Mike.  “This is a really big snake.  You might want to film this.”

“I’ll send you the video,” I said to my business call, and hung up.  I then called my daughter for her to come outside.  She wouldn’t want to miss this either.

This is the video I took:

The triumph only lasted for a few moments.  A rookie mistake, failure to secure the bag, and a snake which clearly had enough survival instinct to last for several seasons, allowed for an escape, which required a recapture attempt.  Here is the recapture attempt:

It was a ‘good’ snake, in that it is the kind of snake that isn’t venomous and eats rodents.  We didn’t want to kill it, but we also didn’t want it to kill our chickens, so we relocated it to a creek down the block from our house.  The kids and I were under the mistaken impression that, now that we had completed the ‘catch’ portion of the festivities, we were simply going to ‘release.’  Mike had other ideas.  See for yourself:

Since then, we haven’t seen Gusss.  But then, we hadn’t seen Gusss before he got to be as big as he was, so he’s obviously good at keeping to himself.  Which is fine by me.  He can eat all the rats he wants.  I just hope he doesn’t like chicken. 

No snakes were harmed in the making of this blog post. Irritated and harassed, perhaps, but not harmed.

If you enjoyed this and want to read more like it, visit Lori on Twitter or on Facebook or read her award winning books.  Her new book, “If You Did What I Asked In The First Place” is currently available by clicking here.

Snake in the Grass

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Lori Duff

Lori B. Duff is an award-winning author who practices law on the side.  Her latest book, "If You Did What I Asked in the First Place" was awarded the Gold Medal for humor in the Foreword INDIES awards in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter at @LoriBDuff and on Facebook. For more blogs written by Lori, click here. For more information about Lori in general, click here. If you want Lori to do your writing for you, click here. If you want Lori to help you market your book, click here.

Snake in the Grass June 26, 2020

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