Snake Bit!

I received a phone call from Dad. He was at the Emergency Room with Mom. "Now don't get upset", he says, "It's not serious. A snake bit her. Twice. On her right hand. But she’s ok". EXCUSE ME?! Not serious? I need to sit down. Snake bit in Oklahoma IS a serious thing. Rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths, oh MY. Your Daddy is just NOT supposed to call you and tell you that your Mom's been snake bit. In her kitchen. Did I mention TWICE?

"No need to come to the hospital", he said. "They aren’t going to admit her and she’ll be home in a little bit. But you guys will have to get the snake out of the kitchen first or she WON'T come home." Uh huh. Sure. I'll get right on that. Right after I go to the hospital.

She wasn't doing nearly as well as he had let on. Her hand was swollen nearly twice its normal size and her blood pressure had sky rocketed. Fortunately the snake wasn’t poisonous, just a common black or King snake. But you can get a really nasty infection from the bacteria it carries. The people who do die from this kind of snake bite usually die from a coronary, not the snake bite itself. They were watching her close though. And so was I. You know that repulsion shudder that women do when they see a snake? She kept shuddering and couldn't stop.

When she started feeling a little better she told how it had happened. She said she had opened one of the lower kitchen cabinets and reached inside for an old metal colander. Something poked her hand and she pulled it back and rubbed it, assuming it was a piece of metal from the colander. Sooooo, she reached for the colander again. THIS time she caught a glimpse of the snake as it bit her. Again. Dad said he was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper when all of a sudden Mom twirled around on one toe, ran back and forth a couple of times and then jumped up on one of the kitchen chairs and screamed "He BIT me!!! He BIT ME!!!"

(Oh, right, like you WOULDN'T have laughed.)

"Now go on" daddy says, "get the snake out of the house so I can bring her home." WHY ME???? Why do I always have to be the one to tell my husband and my brother they have to do stuff like this? Why?!! Oh, and they were just SO thrilled. They stood out in the front yard and hashed it over. King snakes can EASY be 10 feet long. And they are STRONG. We called Animal Control and they just laughed. "We don't do snakes. Now if it is a poisonous snake you can call the police and they'll come down and shoot it for you, but no, we don't do snakes." We didn't want them shooting up mama's kitchen, we just wanted him out of the house. King snakes are actually very helpful. They keep down the rodent population and don't bother much of anything unless you try to pet them in a dark cabinet, then they are likely to bite you just for being forward.

Hubby and my brother decided they needed heavy work gloves to protect against bites. And how about the net bro used to clean his pool with... the one with the 20 foot handle! Great idea! (The kitchen was only 10 feet wide, but hey.) They might need a flashlight and they could use the big plastic trash can with the screw-on lid to put him in when they got him out. So they gathered all their equipment, took a deep breath and went in. My job was to stay out of the way so I stood on the front porch and cheered them on. "Get it out! Get it out! Waaaaaaaaay out!"

Hubby slowly opened the cabinet door and my brother had the trash can lid in one hand and the pool net with the 20 foot long handle in the other. My brother said, "Why can't I be the one to open the cabinet door and you be the one standing here with the net?" "Because she is YOUR mother, that's why." Hubby held the light just so and my brother poked around in the cabinet.

"Ok. Ok. There he is. He's lookin at me."

"Probably thinking Mmmmmm... dessert!"

"Unless you want to be wearin this pole, I suggest you shut the *h* up."

"Get him out! Get him out! Waaaaaaaay out!"

My brother decided he was going to have to take things out of the cabinet so he could get to the snake. He laid the net down but he was still holding on to the trash can lid like a shield. The King laid very still and flicked his tongue while my brother emptied out the cupboard. Bro was beginning to think maybe King was used to people. He didn't seem to mind my brother's presence at all. Maybe he just didn't like being petted. My brother squatted down, peeked inside the cupboard and said, 'So what's it going to be big boy? You want to come outside with me?"

SsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssNAP! The snake lunged right for his face. And hubby and I STILL don't know how my brother ended up in the next room without ever actually touching the floor even once... and backwards to boot. It was truly amazing. Hubby said, "That was GOOD! Don’t you think that was good, Connie? I bet I couldn`t do that in a million years!"

"Get it out... Get it out......"

Hubby is trying to measure off about 10 feet to show me how big it is. "I swear that thing is this big and about THAT big around." I stepped back a couple of feet. That's ok, I can just cheer louder. "Get it out...."

A good thirty minutes have passed since the snake lunged at my brother. The men were pacing back and forth, running their hands through their hair. I was starting to lose my voice. And so far nobody had even touched the snake. Dad called and said they are on the way home and we HAD to have that snake out of the house before Mom got there. They JUST got her blood pressure stabilized.

Trash can lid in hand, my brother had taken his stance. He was rocking back and forth saying, “Ok, Ok. Come on. Come on.” And he drug the snake out of the cabinet with the net far enough that he could get hold of it. He finally just lunged for it and grabed it right behind its head. Hubby grabbed hold of its middle and King started whippin both of their butts with the six feet of snake they didn't have a hold of. Somebody was screaming like a girl. It might have been me. They fought and wrestled King until they finally got all of it IN the trash can and had the lid on it. And Hubby had to SIT on the trash can until it settled down because the snake was thrashing around in it so that he was turning it over.

When they came outside with the trash can, Hubby's shirt was half hanging off and his hair was all standing up on one side... I don't know why. My brother had lost one of his gloves but had somehow managed to not let go of the net through the entire battle. Hubby swears that you can still see his fingers imprinted on the handle to this day. Me... I just got back......... waaaaaaaaaaay back.

Dad brought Mom home but Mom would not go back into the house until they could prove to her that they knew how the snake had gotten in there to begin with and fixed it so that he could not ever get back in. He had come in around a drain pipe, probably to get mice. The drain pipe was promptly repaired. The snake was taken a couple of miles down the road near a nice pond so he would have plenty to eat. Mom was ill for a couple of more days but recovered nicely. Hubby and my brother however didn't recover for about a week.

Mom took quite a teasing for a long time, first of all for reaching in the cabinet the second time and second of all for twirling around on one toe and jumping up on the chair. She got them back every now and then though when somebody else would have to get into that cabinet; she would sneak up behind them, brush the back of their neck or leg with something and say 'SSSssssssssssssssssssssT".

© Connie May
2000
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It wasn't funny at all when mama was bitten. Laughing was a way of coping with a very unfunny situation and the story got funnier and funnier each time it was remembered. I used a little poetic license to make it funnier still... I hope.