Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

It wasn't actually snakes so much as it was A snake.

6:45 Allie wakes me up to tell me "There's a giant snake on our backporch."

6:45 is not a good time to be woken up. And in the list of reasons why you wouldn't want to be woken up, "There's a giant snake on our backporch." Is right near the top of the list along with "The police want to ask you some questions." And "I think something's on fire."

So I get up and go look, and I see this guy:


Yeah, that's a 4 and a 1/2 foot Rat snake, sitting on Allie's chair, looking in our window. That's just creepy.

Well, first, before I got too involved and he was just sitting on the porch, Allie went and hit him in the head with a hoe. I'm all like, "What are you, Conan?" But now the snake's not just hanging out on our porch, he's mad. That was when he moved to the chair to wait for us.

He's looking in the window like, "Come back out here and do that again, wench!"

So, now I have to call people.

At this point Allie's like, "I gotta go to work. Deal with him."

Fan-tastic.

The first place I call is the exterminator that usually comes to do our bugs. He tells me, "You should call animal control."

Good idea. I call animal control and have this conversation:

Me: Yeah, there's a giant snake on my back porch.
Animal Control Lady: Can you get out your front door?
Me: Uh...yeah?
Animal Control Lady: We don't send someone unless you're trapped.
Me: Uh...ok then.

Animal Control is not helpful unless you can't possibly get out of your house without being attacked. Good to know. I'll file that away for future reference.

So, I look up Snake Removal on Google (Google is your friend!) and the first guy I call tells me, "It costs 229$ just for me to come out there and if he wanders away before I get there I still have to charge you."

Yeah, no thanks dude.

So I call someone else and this guy's like, "It sounds like a rat snake. You don't want to get rid of him. It eats Rats."

I tell him, "It's going to eat me if someone doesn't come get it. Besides I have 3 cats."

He says, "Well, fine, I'll come get him, but it's 75$."

75$ is way better than 229$ so I agree and he shows up. He has a metal hook and a plastic tub. He says, "They're really not poisonous, but they can be a little aggressive."

Yeah, he's taken up watch on my porch and he's waiting for me to open the door so he can attack Allie. We're a bit past aggressive at this stage.

The guy goes out and snags it's head with the hook, and then puts his hand on the middle of the snake and picks him up. He says, "See? He's docile." The snake waits until that sentence is finished and then he starts striking at the metal hook holding him up. The guy goes, "Oh, well, there's the attitude."

Mr. Snake got a spot in the tub and a 75$ trip to the woods behind the snake wranglers house (Bet his wife loves him).

Anyway. That's the excitement for this week. Next week I hope to find a nest of scorpions somewhere so we can do all this again.

Here's a couple more pictures of Mr. Snake.