STRIKING HIS HEAD BEFORE HE CAN STRIKE MY HEEL...

I shared my story/gripe about finding a snake in our fire pit (resisting the impulse to remind you that I built it so just ignore everything in the parentheses). It made me think of a joke....

What did the homeless snake say?

"I don't have a pit to hiss in!"

HA!

Hmmm, maybe an explanation for my non-southern readers? A phrase used by folks 'down on their luck' is "I don't have a pot to p*ss in"..... see? Pit to hiss in?

Moving on.



A good while back, my father and I were at his OLD house. He and my Mom had moved out of it a couple of years prior and were holding on to the house for my brother to buy when he was able. But meanwhile, it was sitting empty. When they moved, they left some of their belongings behind, and Dad and I were 'plundering'. I had found a couple of cake plates, a stool, and some other stuff that I wanted. He went outside to back my truck up to the back door. I looked in the laundry room while he was gone and saw a box that contained a punch bowl, high up on a shelf.

I reached up and grabbed the box, carried it into the kitchen, and sat it in the floor. I opened the box and nearly died of a heart attack. There was a HUGE snake, coiled up in the punch bowl!!

And I freaked.

I climbed up on a chair and started yelling "DADDY!!" I just knew that horrible thing was going to start slithering out of the box and I really would die of fright. Cause seeing a snake coiled is bad enough but when they move? IIIEEEEEEE! I yelled and I yelled and he finally came running into the house.

I babbled about the snake being in the punch bowl and I had held the box and put my fingers inside of the box to pick it up and I wasn't sure if the snake could hear me and if he was going to come out of the box because I was yelling....

At which point my Dad told me to hush. He peaked inside of the box, proclaimed it to be a chicken snake, and said that he was going to let it go.

He picked up the box and carried it outside.

I continued freaking out.

He came back inside and said it was gone and to come on. We loaded up and headed to his house. I asked him how big it was when he let it go.

"Well, it was actually pretty big. And I was going to let it go. I opened the flap and couldn't tell if it was going. I looked down and it was already slithering out the back of the box between my feet, CLOSE to my foot. It scared me so bad that I killed it."

And of course, I laughed.

But it took me a LONG time to settle down that day after my close encounter with Mr. Chicken snake.


Oh, and the punch bowl? It was the one my mother bought and used at my first birthday party. I still have it, but I don't think it will EVER be used again.