Unglued by a snake
The corner space beside the washing machine is where the creepy things are. My fear of those four square feet of floor is such that, when I’m doing laundry, I avoid looking over the side of the washer.
Which is stupid because there are glue traps there, placed by my son-in-law the day I saw a little mouse scamper into and then out of my bedroom. I know the traps are there for a reason, but seeing a mouse on a trap would cause that jolt of shock in my gut. But we’d caught the mouse, and my kids would come the next day to remove it.
I called around to exterminators, wanting someone to tell me whether I had “a mouse”, or more tragically, a “mouse problem”, because there’s a big difference. Not wanting to wait weeks for an appointment I concluded I’d had “a mouse” and that we would put down some more traps.
Well, then.
Last week, while pulling wet clothes from the washer, I saw something down there out of the corner of my eye. A drawstring from sweatpants had landed on the trap, and you know where this is going.
Not a drawstring, a snake. A skinny striped thing about seven inches long. This discovery set off a chain of events that, days later, reverberates still.
First, I called my daughter, who said she and her husband would be over after work to take a look, a timeline that I think was a bit nonchalant, considering.
Next, I went and logged onto Zillow, to see how much I could get for my house if I were to sell it now. I considered selling when I saw the mouse, and a snake is even more reason. Then, I started calling exterminators, all of which either were booking a month out, or didn’t do snakes.
As I waited for my sainted, exterminating children to arrive, I locked myself in my bedroom and stuffed a towel under the door, just in case, and considered a snake’s tendencies in this neighborhood. I live at the crest of a very wide and overgrown woods, a place that’s certainly teeming with wildlife. I’d prefer it stay down there.
Why are we so afraid of snakes? It must be something innate, or at least biblical.
The kids arrived, they gloved up and reached into the scary space and picked up the glue trap.
“It’s alive!” Grace exclaimed. “We have to let it go!”
There was talk of using oil to remove the snake from the glue. My son-in-law and I overruled her, and he took it outside and did whatever he had to do – but not before the two of them lurked around corners holding the trap, waiting to jump out at me.
The photo I took shows a striped S-curve on a green rectangle. Some friends instructed me not to text it to them. My son, who approves of snakes, recognized it.
“That’s an Eastern milk snake,” he said. “If you could have saved it, there are people who would gladly take it. They are good to have around.”
“I would disagree,” I said.
The kids pulled out the washer and found the drain in the tile floor, the snake’s probable portal to my world. They covered it with mesh and then, for good measure, I gave them a heavy iron decorative plate to put on top of that. I slept well that night.
And the real exterminator? He’s coming in two weeks.