What seems like a lifetime ago, but when I first moved to Florida back in 1996 I almost immediately came face to face with one of my greatest fears. It was very traumatic.
It was a Wednesday, cool for Florida, but not cold. Just breezy, too breezy to really go to the beach but sunny. A day that just called for spending time in the backyard. So I called in "sick" to work and got ready for a perfectly relaxing day.
I pulled out the beach blanket and a big ole glass of ice with Diet Coke. An extra pack of cigarettes and I was all set.
I got everything out on the ground - didn't have a beach chair yet. Believe me, that was purchased that very afternoon. Anyway, I got everything settled, back door open with my favorite radio station on, and stretched out to catch some rays.
I heard a rustle in the grass. My nephew was mowing my lawn for me and we were just a few days late on the trim so it was rather long. I heard the rustle over by the fence and smiled picturing a couple of lizards enjoying the sunshine with me.
It wasn't very long, just a few minutes and I got restless. It felt like someone was watching me. Realizing I was just being silly, but still restless I glanced over to my right and there it was. A snake. A black snake, but a snake none the less.
And it wasn't just there. Oh no, it was there LOOKING at me. Just sitting there, contemplating what the hell I was. A log that he could curl up under? Something to slither over? What?
I couldn't breathe. I remember hopping up and by hopping I mean I went from stretched out to standing completely up, with glass in hand a good foot away from the blanket. Still there he was, watching me. Enjoying my panic. I swear I saw him smile.
As my mind rushed thru the options of what in the hell I could do, I realized there was only one answer. I needed to call my best friend, at work, in Indiana. She would know what to do. Or at the very least talk me out of my hysteria.
So, again I don't remember how I got there, but next thing I knew I was standing inside the back door, phone in one hand, drink in the other looking thru the now locked screen door. (I had to lock it, you see. Snakes are sneaky, he could have easily gotten in if I hadn't.)
As I explained my situation I already felt a sense of calm.....Sharon would fix it. She would understand. Well, once she finally stopped laughing. Laughing? She was laughing at this horrific situation? WTF?!?!
Her first suggestion was we needed to kill it. I agreed. Any suggestions? A stick? Yeah, not a lot of "sticks" on palm trees strong enough to kill a snake. Smash it! Smash it with a rock!! Again, Florida!?! No rocks really handy.
Final decision was the most obvious. Leave it alone. Just leave it alone and it will eventually leave. Made perfect sense, but the problem there was then I wouldn't know where it was. What it was doing. I didn't take a lot of comfort in that. But I didn't have a lot of choice.
But the choice that was in my power was easy. I would just never go back out in the backyard again. Ever. I left the blanket and even the cigarettes right where they were. In fact, 2 weeks later I found an apartment, on the 2nd floor, where I really wouldn't have to worry about them invading my space again.
Yeah.....that was my welcome to Florida. I learned a couple of lessons from that day. Stop playing hooky. Oh, and buy a damned beach chair. No more laying on the grass.
Snakes and gators in Florida never stay where they are supposed to. I had a friend in Longwood FL who had a dog door into her kitchen from patio. I get a hysterical call one night about a 7 foot gator trying to get in her dog dog. Unfortunately (or not), he was too big to make it through - but he is stuck, hissing and pissed. Her bulldogs are hysterical, running up to said gator and barking and she's yelling get the hell away from the gator. Eventually, animal control sent a gator person to remove said gator from said dog door (which had to be dismantled to accomplish that. I wish I could have been there!
ReplyDeleteOMG OMG OMG! I'm freaking out just reading this! My worst nightmare. You know, come to think of it, for someone with chronically curly hair, fear of snakes and gators and life threatening allergy to fire ants, I really shouldn't miss Florida so much. LOL. But I do....oh yes I do.
DeleteMother's Day is coming up soon so I'll tell the story of my Mom and the rattlesnake once more. I was in my very early teens, 14 at the top and maybe even 11 or twelve, in there someplace. My Mom was a rockhound and we traveled much of the west searching for her favorites, quartz crystals. We were seen pretty often in that big ol' 55 Mercury station wagon towing that robin's egg blue '43 Army Jeep behind.
ReplyDeleteThis episode was on the Calavaras River, up where Mark Twain's Jumping Frog found fame, diffing for crystals and doing a little gold panning. This was a big deal outing on the property of a copper mine, two or three different clubs were all there, it took a whole bunch of 'em to talk the mining company into letting us all in once a year.
Anyhow, this was before California lost it's mind so most everyone had some form of firearm for snakes and rabidy skunks and suchlike.
Anyhow somebody saw a rattlesnake. Now the section of property we were on was almost solid rock where the river flowed during the Spring snowmelt. The little depressions in the rock would fill with the stuff the river carried down and we would dig through that looking for our mineral treasures.
So, the call went out SNAKE!!!!111!!!!!11!!! All these guys came with their pistols, anything from .22s to Army .45s and they all started blazing away at this poor dumb snake. On rock. Ricochetes were flyin' everywhere and nobody hit the snake. Sounded like the battle of Hue City in Tet of '68. The twelve or fifteen shooters ran out of ammo with the snake still very much with us. Mom walked up with her shovel, cave all those guys the kind of look only a mother of an unruly boy can give, changed her grip on her shovel and chopped that snake in half like a Japanese soldier bayoneting the wounded. She repeated that look, strongly enough to shrivel testicles to the size of raisins, walked back to her spot and resumed digging. All without a word.
Since I don't think you'd ever find my Zombie Momma you ought to get you a shovel if you ever want to go sitting around outside.
Oh, as soon as I figure out how to post a picture from my E-mail I'll be putting up pics of my latest grandchild, a girl, Mary Grace. Since women always want to know, she was 22 inches and 9pounds, 11 ounces. Meleah must've looked like she was shoplifting bowling balls.