Eating Humble Pie

[dourobob]

A Funny Snake Story (for me but not my Mom)

Many years ago my Mom came home from grocery shopping and, as she stopped the car in the laneway she happened to notice a small garter snake on the sidewalk between her car and the back porch. Just to give you a feeling for how my Mom felt about snakes, she would lift her feet off the floor of the car if she happened to see a snake ont he road - even a dead one - and there was no way she could actually watch one on TV.
Well, Mom sat in the car for a few minutes trying to decide how to handle this snakey situation and, after due consideration, she decided to scare the snake away by throwing an orange (from the groceries in the back seat) at it. One orange led to another and to another etc. etc. Within 10 minutes there were a dozen oranges on the sidewalk along with the small snake - Mom didn't have much of an aim.

Mom then decided she needed to relax a bit so she lit up a cigarette and, after she finished, she looked over at the sidewalk - no snake.
This was her chance!!
The coast was clear!!
She jumped out of the car, ran across the sidewalk, lept up the three steps on to the porch and .... as she got to the door realized she had left her keys in the car.
When she turned to get the keys she stopped in her tracks because that sneaky little snake had just moved onto the grass beside the sidewalk. Because she knew, without a doubt, this little beggar was just waiting to "get" her (what ever that was supposed to mean) she in turn waited about 4 hours until Dad came home from work to find her still on the porch, a dozen oranges on the sidewalk, melted ice cream in the back seat of the car and no snake in the vicinity.

My Mom passed away a few years ago but every time I see a snake I remember how well she taught me to react and I smile. We are fortunate that there are no poisonous snakes in our area and I can "intellectually" understand their contribution to our eco-system but, I hate it when they startle the bejeezes out me - just like Mom.

Maybe I need to carry a bag of oranges with me at all times /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Bob

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Poor mom! All those oranges and no successs. I know what you mean about the 'startle factor'. I don't think a spider or anything else can quite get the same gut reaction as being confronted suddenly with a snake. I'm used to the black racers and garter snakes and can usually identify them out of the corner of my eye. We were told once that there were no copperheads out here and then found one shortly after that. Dixi killed a snake once that was a vivid yellow color about four feet long with some light brown markings. I never did learn what that one was.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

It was one of those old fashioned yellow snakes,they are kinda like a black snake only yellow. RICHARD GAUTHIER

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Oh, thanks Richard, if I get bit by one I'll tell the medical staff that it's one of those old fashioned yellow kind ones. Pffft. Funny funny guy. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

That's a good one.

I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I lost mine to colon cancer six years ago yesterday.

Some years ago a black chicken showed up at the shop. She adopted us, shop and me. She was great company and had a sense of humor second to none. I'd tell jokes and she'd just cackle, easy to laugh she was.

I put the box that came with a new chop saw up on a shelf in the shop for her to roost. She'd give me one egg a day, sorta like rent.

One evening I came in, tail tucked firmly between legs, but did the old check on the shop thing. When I turned on the lights there was Cluck on the floor.

"What the heck you doing down here girl" I asked as I reached down and picked her up. A couple of petting strokes and some cooing words later I put her up in the box. She came out of there faster'n a republican can say "tax cut."

I grabbed a stool and climbed up there to see what in the heck could make her act like that.

There in that box was about a five foot chicken snake with a mouthfull of egg, my egg, the rent egg, not it's egg.

There was a wrestling match. I won. Egg went into the fridge, fridge is like the bank for rent eggs. But I had a big old chicken snake that I didn't need or want. So I put it in a trash can for the night.

First thing next morning I called various buds and asked them what to do with the snake. The consensus was the best thing was to make two of them.

I don't like to kill things. We are all in this together. Darn snake naturally liked Cluck's offering the same way I did. The only difference was I was bigger and had more clout.

That morning I was going to University Park, one of the better neighborhoods of Dallas. So I put the chicken snake on the welding truck. If figured if the snake jumped off the truck at speed it would be suicide, not homicide.

I had a little repair to do on a big gate on a big gate at this big house. He was a silver spooner Mr Mom with two kids and she was some pysch something or another of well known in that field.

The homeowner came out as I was setting up. We were talking as I reached in and grabbed that snake who was coiled on top of the positive welding lead. I don't care how cool you are the body temp will do a serious up spike if you grab a handfull snake while expecting a stinger.

You'd thought that snake was a hot horseshoe the way I moved and the words that escaped before the jaws tightened up real tight. Homeowner thought it was hilarious.

I shooed the snake away from the welding cable and continued setting up. Then as I was welding I looked up and there was the homeowner with one of my spare gloves teasing the snake. I told him not to do that. He told me to make sure the snake left with me. If his wife even heard that a snake had been in the neighborhood he'd have to put her back into therapy.

I haven't seen the snake since the incident with him teasing it. I like to think the snake is in one of the nicer suburbs of Dallas having a good life, big trees, lots of birds, occasional squirrel, and now and then one of them fur balls that some folks call a dog.

Cluck disappeared a year or so after that. There was one other incident with another chicken snake. I had a conversation with that one it took me serious. At least I'd like to thing so because there wasn't a problem after that. A good cussin' can go a long way.

I found Cluck's body in the bushes along the road about a week after she disappeared. I regret never telling her to wear some light colored if she was going to be in the traffic lanes.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Lol Harv! That was hilarious! Poor cluck. Shoulda got her an orange vest.

 

[GaryM]

You need to make some "Chicken Crossing" signs!

 

[Anonymous Poster]

The popular show the Alligator Hunter did a speacial a while ago about the mouse plague in Australia, some may remember it , there were millions of mice inthe farmers field and feed bins.
The solution to the problem was poison for the quick fix and for the long term was to stop killing the snakes.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I bet there's a lot of other natural predators that they should stop killing as well. I saw that show. I can't belive that Australia has run out of snakes to the point that the mice are taking over. That's all the 'crocodile' guy seems to talk about
.....blimey! what a beauty! you're all right mate, you're all right! holding some awful snake. Lol!

I also saw a program called Never Cry Wolf. It was a documentary on the survival of a few wolf packs on top of some mountain where there was supposedly no food in the winter time. Turns out they were existing entirely on mice. Neat story.

 

[dourobob]

A fine East Coast (Canada) musian J.P Cormier wrote a song titled "What's That Sound?" It was about the decline of the cod fishery over the past few years and the attitudes of some that the fish supply could never end.

Part of it goes like this-

What's that sound?
What's that sound?

Hell freezing over.


Bob