Recalling 'The Snake Incident'

I don’t like snakes. As far as I am concerned, the only good snake is one I don’t ever see. I know they have their place in nature and some of them are even beneficial but I prefer that they stay far, far away and hidden from sight.

In sharp contrast, my son Zack likes the slithering creatures. Not surprisingly, this difference in taste has caused a few issues in the past. When Zack was a kid he asked several times to have a pet snake.

My answer was always the same: “Son, when you grow up maybe you will marry a woman who likes snakes and you can have all the snakes you want in your house, but as long as you live in my house, we aren’t going to have a pet snake. Howabout a hermit crab?”

This kept away the pet snakes until sometime during Zack’s college days. He purchased a baby ball python and kept it in an aquarium. During one summertime visit he showed up for a two or three day stay and brought along his “pet.” Against my better judgment I agreed that he could keep the snake in the bedroom just for these few days. But that came only after his dad double checked the snake’s living quarters to convince me that there was no way in the world the snake could escape.

Fast forward to the next day when Zack left the house for several hours while the snake remained in the bedroom. I stuck my head through the bedroom doorway from time to time just for reassurance that Mr.Snake was safely contained in the aquarium.

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon I peeked in and couldn’t believe my eyes. The snake was nowhere to be found! At first I froze, then flew into panic mode.

Whatever I did next made enough noise that Megan, my 14-year-old at the time, hurried into the room to check on me. With more composure and bravery than I could gather, she helped me conduct a thorough search around the bedroom floor. Using a straightened wire coat hanger - so as to stand a good distance back - I began picking up and moving the smaller items around the room. Finding nothing of the snake, I had the sinking feeling that the thing could have escaped under the bedroom door and might be anyplace inthe house.

I called a pet store in Fayetteville and asked to talk to the employee with the most snake experience. A young man - I was hoping for somebody old with many years of experience - got on the phone and told me to bait the snake with mice, and when it got hungry it would come to them. I didn’t have any mice on hand. And this could take days, he explained! I couldn’t wait.

I called my husband’s office and quickly related to him the snake situation, reminding him - maybe more than once - that he had told me the snake could not get out. He found it comical at first but became more serious when I mentioned putting the house on the market.He contacted Zack and sent him home to help.

Meanwhile Megan and I continued our search by looking under furniture. At last we managed to move a heavy dresser just enough that we caught sight of the AWOL snake. I screamed and jumped with both feet on the bed and then tried to think of how to catch the snake now that we had located him.

Although Zack did it all the time, neither Megan nor I would pick it up so we decided to make a barricade and wait. We stuffed towels between the dresser and the wall and floor hoping this would encourage the snake to stay put. I then sat in the middle of the bed and vigilantly guarded the site until Zack got home.

It seemed like an eternity when Zack finally rushed into the room a couple of hours later and picked up the snake gently with his bare hands. “Are you OK, Little Buddy?” he asked the creature that had just given his mother the scare of her life and almost caused us to have to move out of our home.

Several years have passed since “the snake” incident. It was one of those days that aged me about a year but I can now laugh a little along with the rest of the family. Zack has more reptile stories but none of them involves bringing another snake into my house. He knows better than to ask.

His hermit crab escaped once too, but that story is not nearly so dramatic. Although it was on the loose for three months I could still sleep at night and didn’t even once consider selling the house.

Annette Rowe is a freelance writer and a speech-language pathologist at Siloam Springs High School. She may be reached by e-mail at awalkinthepark50 @ yahoo.com.