Yesterday I saw a cute, little lizard in our entryway. I've been seeing them in our yard and at the park TONS this year, including adorable little one- and two-inch varieties, but not one in the house! This one was maybe six inches long, really skinny, and mostly tail. Thrilled that Mom was taking a nap and wouldn't have to know, I scooped him up, took him out into the front yard, and let him go. (if it's a spider, it deserves to die; if it's anything else, in my mind, it's cute)
Rewind 20 years. Nicole and I were home alone and I was working on something for school. I walked from the kitchen to the bathroom and stopped: there was a snake on the carpet. Cool, I thought, I LOVE snakes! Mom and Dad got me a toy snake, maybe three feet long, and surprised me with it--sweet! I got down on the carpet, right up next to it, only to see its tongue stick out. Uh, not a toy snake. Though I liked snakes and had handled several before, I was a little freaked out--I had no idea what kind of snake it was! I ran upstairs, told Nicole, but she didn't believe me. Luckily, you could see the snake if you were upstairs on the banister looking at the mirrors in the living room. She freaked out, so we ran to her friend's house a street away, and left a note for Mom and Dad that there was a snake in the house.
Heh. Mom freaked. We called Animal Control, they had me describe the snake and look at pictures (probably some sort of King snake, but not a rattler, for sure), but we never found the snake. I think Mom slept in sweats, socks, and shoes for months.
A few months later, Mom came upstairs and told me: "I found the snake!" She was vacuuming (of course!) and had trapped the snake in between the sliding glass door and the screen door in the family room. I saw it, a cute little guy, maybe a foot long, and said, "Aw, how cute! You found another one!"
She freaked. ANOTHER ONE?! Animal Control came once again. "You probably have a snake's nest under your house somewhere and it's had babies." Great.
Luckily for us, that was the last of our snake encounters. While I'm fine with snakes, I'd really rather not run into another one in our house again. I'll take lizards any day.
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6 comments:
Reminds me of when I was leaving for school one day and saw a tiny snake right by the front door. My mom was in the kitchen and started screaming for a brother to come and deal with it. One of them came and she's still yelling as he edges his way closer to the door. He picks it up and hurls it at us in the kitchen and she about peed her pants. Turned out to be a black shoe lace which we now refer to as the "Shoe Snake." Very dangerous species.
My mom would have bought a new house if she ever caught one IN the house but luckily we only had backyard encounters.
Ha ha! I can so see your brothers doing that. Which one pulled it off?
Oh wow, that's a fabulous story.
We actually have been finding a lot of scorpions in our house recently and I found these sticky traps and set one up outside hoping to catch a bunch of the nasty critters in it. The next day I walk outside to check what creatures I'd caught in my web, only to discover--to my horror--that a gecko was caught it in and still wiggling around trying to escape! I was really saddened by the sight, so I pulled him out (And really had to pull because that stuff is quite sticky) and release him. The trap went right into trash after that. I'm not cool with killing things that eat spiders, crickets, and other bugs--especially when they're so darn cute and colorful.
I'm totally with you on that--I'd WAY rather run into a lizard than a snake.
Ya I agree snakes are really really yuckyyy!!
Haha, great post! Just glad I've never had a snake incident... *knock on wood!!!*
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