There he was slithering down the hallway heading for our bedroom. Monty will tell you the serpent was at least six feet long with glowing eyes and smoke streaming from his nostrils. Actually I think the smoke might of obscured Monty’s view of this eighteen inch long gopher snake. But since this is Monty’s story I better let him tell it.
As we stepped out of the bedroom Zoe, Carrie and I came face to face with a monstrous snake in the hallway. Talk about startled! Zoe was dancing a jig trying not to step on it, Zoe’s latest snake experience didn’t end well and she was not anxious to repeat it. Carrie was screaming, “OMG it’s a snake.” I yelled, “Holy Shit!”, what I usually yell when confronted with a snake. As far as snakes go, he didn’t look like a mean snake, but still, he was, well, a snake.
The snake wasn’t coiled and rattling, that eased our minds somewhat, but we still didn’t want him in the house. I started hollering for a broom. Surely Carrie can sneak by the snake in the narrow hallway and run for the broom. I didn’t know that woman could run in slow motion. I was helping by continuing to holler hurry up, hurry up. I was in a battle for survival and determined not to let the snake chase me down and choke the life out to me. I must have held the monster at bay for at least thirty minutes waiting for Carrie to return with the broom (Carrie here, it was more like three minutes, but I wasn’t the one facing the snake)
The snake, is getting worked up about all the activity and is booking it for the bedroom door, this guy could have set a land speed record, he was really fast. He makes the turn and heads into the bedroom. My worst nightmare, a snake in the bedroom. He is sticking close to the wall and he slips right into the linen closet. We start throwing stuff out of the closet. First the vacuum cleaner and fishing gear, followed by the assorted junk that fills the bottom of a closet.
Hoping with each item we grab the snake isn’t attached to it. Aha, there he is hiding in the corner, I successfully scoot him out of the corner and he is off and running again. Good grief, then he wriggles under the dresser. Carrie held the flashlight while I coaxed him out with the broom.
Finally the snake saw the sliding door and headed that way, we quick opened the door. I gave him a boost over the threshold and he headed for the great outdoors.
Given some thought we might have handled this better but neither one of us was eager to pick the snake up and trying to coax him into a box seemed unreasonable. We hope he wasn’t traumatized from the experience, at least no more so than we were.
