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| Snake Bit by � kanee It was a hot summer day in Oklahoma (aint it always? lol) and I got a phone call from Dad. He was at the Emergency Room with Mom. Nothing serious... she was just snake bit..... twice.... on her right hand. `Scuse me, I need to sit down. Snake bit in Oklahoma is a serious thing. Rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths... oh MY. Your Daddy is just NOT supposed to call you and tell you that your Mom's been snake bit... in her kitchen.... did I mention TWICE? No need to come to the hospital, he says. `She can come home after while, but first, we got to get the snake out of the kitchen or she WON'T come home, even if they let her`. Uh huh. Sure. I'll get right on that. Who ya gonna call, eh? Well, I never had done what my Daddy told me to do before, didn't see any need in starting that crap now, so of COURSE I went to the hospital. She wasn't doing nearly as well as he had let on. Her hand was swelled up at least twice it's normal size and her blood pressure had sky rocketed. Turned out the snake was a common black snake or `King` snake... not poisonous, thank goodness. Most people get a really nasty infection from the bacteria it carries... and the people who do die from this kind of snake bite usually died from a coronary, not the snake bite itself. They were watching her close, though. And so was I. She kept *shuddering* and couldn't stop. You know, that repulsion shudder that women do when they see a snake. She was having 'multiple shuddering'. lol She finally paused long enough in between shudders to half way tell what had happened. She had opened one of the lower kitchen cabinets and reached inside for a metal colander. Something 'stuck' her hand. She pulled it back and rubbed it without looking at it. She thought a piece of metal on the colander had pricked her. Sooooo, she sticks her hand back in there to reach for the colander again. THIS time she saw it, and it bit her... again. Dad said he was just sittin at the table mindin his own business when all of a sudden Mom twirled around on one toe three or four times. Said he finally realized she wasn't dancing ballet and was actually screaming instead of singing opera when she jumped up on the chair and screeched "He BIT me!!! He BIT ME!!!" "The heck you say!" Oh, right, like you WOULDN'T have laughed. "Now go on" daddy says, "get the snake out of the house so I can bring her home after while." WHY ME???? Why do I always have to be the one to tell my husband and my brother they gotta do stuff like this, huh? Why!! Oh, and they were just SO thrilled. They stood out in the front yard and hashed it over and over. King snakes can EASY be 10 feet long. And they are STRONG. We called Animal Control and they just laughed. "We don't do snakes. Now, if it is a poisonous snake, you can call the police and they'll come down and shoot it for you, but no, we don't do snakes." We didn't want him dead, just out of the kitchen. They are actually very helpful. They keep down the rodent population and don't bother much of anything unless you try to pet them in a dark cupboard, then they are liable to bite you just for being forward. Well, Mike (hubby) and David (bro) decided they needed heavy work gloves so maybe they wouldn't get bit, too. And how about the net David used to clean his pool out with... the one with the 20 ft. handle on it! Great idea! (The kitchen was only 10 feet wide, but we won't go there.) They might need a flashlight and they could use the big plastic trash bin with the screw-on lid to put him in when they got him out. So they gathered all their paraphernalia, took a deep breath, and went in. My job was to stand on the front porch and cheer them on. "Get it out! Get it out! Waaaaaaaaay out!" Mike slowly opened the cupboard door and David had the trash bin lid in one hand and the pool net with the 20 foot long handle in the other. David said, "Why can't I be the one to open the cupboard door and you be the one standing here with the net?" "Because she is YOUR mother, that's why." Mike held the light just so and David poked around in the cabinet. "Ok. Ok. There he is. He's lookin at me." "Probably thinkin... Mmmmmm... dessert!" "Unless you want to be wearin this pole, I suggest you shut the *h* up." "Get him out! Get him out! Waaaaaaaay out!" David decides he has to put the net down for a while to move some of the stuff out of the cupboard so he can get to the snake, but he is still holding on to the trash bin lid, like a shield. The "King" just laid in there, acting very bored by it all, flicking his tongue, and watched.... biding his time. David eventually had to resort to using the net to just scoop some of the stuff out of the cabinet, so as not to get too close to the snake. Still, the snake didn't move, just laid very still. David was beginning to think he was actually very tame, probably used to being around people all the time. He didn't seem to mind David's presence at all. Maybe he just didn't like being 'petted'. David squatted down, peeked inside the cupboard and said, 'So what's it going to be, big boy? You want to come outside with me?" SsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssNAP! The snake lunged right for his face. And Mike and I STILL don't know how David ended up in the next room without ever actually touching the floor even once... and backwards to boot. It was truly amazing. Mike said, "D*** David, that was GOOD! Don`t you think that was good, Connie? I bet I couldn`t do that in a million years!" "Get it out... Get it out......" Mike is trying to measure off about 10 feet to show me how big it is. "I swear to God that thing is this big and about THAT big around." I stepped back a couple of feet. That's ok, I can just cheer louder. "Get it out...." A good thirty... maybe forty-five minutes have passed since the snake lunged at David. Men pacing back and forth, running their hands through their hair. "King" watching them, thinking what a bunch of fools. I'm startin to lose my voice. And so far, nobody has even touched the snake. And to make matters worse, Dad called and says they are on the way home and we HAVE to have that snake out of the house before Mom gets there, they JUST got her blood pressure stabilized. Trash bin lid in hand, David had taken his stance. He was rockin back and forth saying, `Ok, Ok. Come on. Come on." And he drags the snake out of the cabinet with the net far enough that he can get a hold of it. He finally just lunges for it and grabs it right behind it's head. Mike grabs hold of it's middle and "King" starts whippin both of their butts with the six feet of snake they didn't have a hold of. Somebody was screaming like a girl, it might have been me, I don't really know. All I know is, they fought and wrestled that thing for what seemed like an eternity before they finally got it all IN the trash bin and had the lid on it. And Mike had to SIT on the trash bin until it settled down because the snake was thrashing around in it so that he was turning it over. When they came outside, carrying the trash bin, Mike's shirt was half hanging off and his hair was all standing up on one side... I don't know why. David had lost one of his gloves but had somehow managed to not let go of the net through the entire battle. Mike swears that you can still see his fingers imprinted on the handle to this day. Me... I just got back......... waaaaaaaaaaay back. Dad brought Mom home but Mom would not go back into the house until they could prove to her that they knew how the snake had got in there to begin with and fixed it so that he could not ever get back in. He had came in around a drain pipe... probably to get mice. The drain pipe was promptly repaired. The snake was taken a couple of miles down the road near a nice pond so he would have plenty to eat. Mom was ill for a couple of more days, but recovered nicely. Mike and David, however, didn't recover for about a week. Mom took quite a teasin for a long time, first of all, for reaching in the cupboard the second time, and second of all, for twirling around on one toe and jumping up on the chair. She got her come back every now and then though, when somebody else would have to get into that cupboard and she would sneak up behind them, brush the back of their neck or leg with something and say 'SSSsssssssssssssssssssssT". : ) |