The Back Door is Closed

Grab the beverage of your choice and sit back for I have a tale to tell.

Thursday evening Roger and I took our simple pasta supper to the sunroom to enjoy the outside from inside avoiding a mosquito swarm.  We lingered enjoying a glass of wine, talking about our day and watching the sun leave the sky.  As the evening enveloped the backyard we were prompted to get up and finish daily chores.   Roger headed outside and I began clearing the table.  I stacked the dishes and took the few steps into the kitchen.

I stopped and did a double take.  He was about nine inches and was slithering across my kitchen floor.   It  was rather surreal seeing this visitor scooting across the floor, head held high, the refrigerator towering on one side and the stove hovering on the other, moving toward the dead end of the room.   I felt as if maybe I had walked into a Salvador Dali painting.  I had to wonder if I was imagining it.

Although I  am not afraid of snakes, cautious, but not scared, I did yell out "snake".   Okay,  I just said it...yes, there was a snake in my kitchen.  I live in suburbia not the country!   No one came to my rescue and he seemed comfortably at home.  I went to the back door to get Roger's attention.  In disbelief he followed me into the kitchen only to find our night visitor had disappeared. 

Where?  Under the refrigerator?  The stove?  Or maybe into the abyss by the dishwasher?  There was always the possibility he dropped down the air conditioner vent in the floor.  We spent about an hour looking for this directionally challenged fellow.  

We pumped the air conditioning down to see if we could chill him into seeking warmer ground.  Bedtime and no snake.  I had visions of him slipping through the air conditioning ducts, up the walls and dropping through the vent above my bed.  Surprisingly I fell asleep with little effort.  I did have a couple of snake dreams; one involved a dog, a very large snake and fire (I was in a Dali painting).  

Friday morning there was no sign of my houseguest, and I went about my business getting ready to leave for school.  Around 10 o'clock I received a text from Roger.

"I CAPTURED THE LITTLE GUY!

HE IS BACK IN THE GREENBELT.

ON ACCOUNT OF GOOD BEHAVIOR,

NO DEATH PENALTY."

When I had a minute I texted back, "Where did you find him?"

His reply, "Sunning, by the chair in the den."

Yes!  That would be my chair.  The chair where I sit each morning to email my daughter.  Had he been coiled under the chair that morning watching my feet?    Or maybe he was in my knitting basket setting beside my chair.   I shiver to think of reaching into the basket pulling out a wiggling snake instead of a knitting needle.   I suppose he was trying to give me a Halloween jumpstart.

I think I will rethink saying "the backdoor is always open".

I do hope he finds his mom and dad.  His mom and dad...surely they are living outside.