What Else Happened on the Fourth

Even though the event I'm about to describe happened on the Fourth, I could not in good conscience include it in the previous post because it was anything but a celebration!  Let me explain...

When we got home after the parade, Jeff drove the minivan into the garage like usual.  99 times out of 100, I would have gotten out of the van, gotten Moriah out of the van, and walked from the garage directly into the house.  But on that particular evening, I wanted Jeff to snap a couple quick photos of Moriah and I, so we went out to the driveway; and as soon as I set Moriah down, she crawled as fast as she could around to the front of the house and started climbing up the steps (one of her great loves these days!).  So there we were...

...Moriah climbing the steps, me following behind her, enjoying the beautiful evening air and the sense of peace after such a lovely family day together.  All was well.

But really, it wasn't.

Because, you see, when we rounded the corner and got within view of the front door, I saw something on the doormat.  Something black.  Something curled up.  Something ugly.  Something horrifying.  Something distinctly serpentine.

No way.

I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES.  There really was a snake curled up right in front of my door.  WHAT IN THE WORLD???????

I grabbed Moriah up from the sidewalk, called to the other kids (some of my own and two of the neighbor kids) to GET BACK because there was a snake, raced back down to the garage and into the house to find Jeff, couldn't find him, finally met him at the patio where he was leisurely strolling down from the shed, hurriedly told him what was going on...  My heart was beating so fast, and I'm sure--if I had paused long enough to notice--I would have discovered that I was trembling.  Oddly enough, I remembered Jeff's request from three years ago that if I should see a snake in the future, it would be helpful to shout "SNAKE" rather than "JEFF"; so because of that, I tried hard to give Jeff as much information as I could in a split-second window of time.  I think I managed to get out "SNAKE" and "FRONT DOOR," but I'm not sure I was able to communicate much more than that.  At that point, that was all that mattered, I suppose.

Jeff, needless to say, was much more calm, cool, and collected than I was.  He got a hoe and a sack from the garden shed, then went to the front porch to investigate.

Only to discover that the snake was already dead.

DEAD.

DEAD!!!

WHAT IN THE WORLD???????

Our thoughts whirled as questions tumbled from our lips.  When did it die?  How did it die?  Rat poison from some that Jeff had spread days before?  Natural death?  A cat?  Why on earth would a snake decide to crawl to our front door and curl up on our mat before kicking the bucket?  Because it was warm there?

Then the thought came to our minds that maybe someone had done this as a joke.  My immediate suspicion was our neighbor Douglas, although after reflecting further and talking to his wife, I realize that he would NEVER do that, since--as Wilma said--he's even worse than I am about snakes!  (And that's saying something!)  :)

Our next thought was Kevin the Painter who happened to be around during that three-years-ago incident I mentioned above; but although he's a jokester, it just didn't seem to be quite the thing he would do.

One more name came to our minds:  Chris.  Of course.  It HAD to be him.  But he's supposed to be our friend!  Would he REALLY do that to us?  ;-)

Jeff went into the house, got on Facebook, and discovered that Chris had been in the national forest that day, hunting for salamanders.  It wouldn't be surprising if he had found a snake while he was at it!  But the odd thing (well, ONE of the odd things, since honestly, the whole thing was just totally weird!) is that there were no marks on the snake's body to indicate how it died.  No bullet holes, no hoe marks, etc.  Nothing.

(I know that because Jeff told me--NOT because I myself got close enough to the snake's body to examine it!)

By this time, more of our neighbors had meandered over, amused, I'm sure, by the drama being enacted on our front lawn.  I really try to keep myself in check when a snake shows up, but I'm afraid I'm hopeless!  We asked them whether any of them had seen a vehicle come to our house that evening while we were gone; and sure enough, one of them had.  Marlene said, "Yeah, I saw a truck here...and it left in a big hurry!"

Chris has a truck.  He was seeming guiltier and guiltier by the moment.

Eventually he confessed to the crime prank and told us that he had found the snake--already dead--by the road not too far from our house and decided that we needed to have it.  I personally think that was one of the most foolish decisions he's ever made in his life!  ;-)

Now that some time has gone by, I've forgiven him, of course; but I still get a funny feeling every time I look at the doormat.  And speaking of funny feelings, here are Jeff and Shav holding the snake not long after Jeff discovered it was dead.

I'm not surprised that Jeff is doing this, but Shav???  What are you thinking, little one???

Seeing these pictures of that snake in his sweet hands makes me want to grab a baby wipe and creep silently into his room right now to rub his hands again to make sure they're clean.  Even though they've been washed numerous times since he held the snake.  I'm such a logical person, you've gotta admit.  ;-)

One final mystery lingers though...  WHY am I always the one to find the snakes around here?  If I'm not mistaken, in every snake situation we've had since we moved here almost eight years ago, I'm the first to spot the snake.  Let's see...there's the 2008 incident.  Yep, I was the one who found the snake.  The 2009 one--I was the first in that one, too.  The 2010 one I've already linked to.  The 2011 situation in which I personally had to take action against the snake.  2012 was a great year because...NO SNAKES.  But now with this 2013 craziness, I was again the one to discover the snake.  Why is it that way?

In this case, it was such a long shot that I would enter the house that way; but for some reason, God ordained my steps (Chris will love that one) ;-) that evening so that Moriah led me right up the sidewalk to that door.

Right to the worst part of July the Fourth.

;-)