For the sake of context, I usually sleep in the guest room because I tend to be a toss and turner and it does disturb others sleep.
FORTUNATELY I also tend to fall asleep while reading so the light was on.
About 1:30am I woke up and felt something cold and dampish.
Thought we had a roof leak since it seemed to be moving – so it must be dripping … right
Sat up in time to see a SNAKE almost hidden under the pillow I HAD, up until about 15 seconds ago had my arm wrapped around.
After a non-crucial (it turns out) one or two seconds to take a fast deep breath, dump the waste basket and slam it over the snake.
OKAY NOW WHAT DO I DO?!?!?
Oh my good Lord in Heaven, there is a portion of it sticking out, but if I lift the edge minutely to shove it back in will it escape like the rattler that bit Valerie. What would Valerie do (our cousin who raises snakes) Vaguely I remember seeing Valerie using a flat piece of cardboard to slide under their Snake boxes
I used a magazine like a shovel edge to push it under. and again
MMOG, NOW WHAT
All I can say is THANK GOD FOR COLOR CARDS and the fact that most are done with “over sized” cardboard. Better yet thank goodness I was working on some color cross refs yesterday .
By this time, the colorful words have reached sufficient volume so that TheHenry has somewhat awoken and comes in to see if I am Okay, why are there tissues all over the floor, and why am is standing with my weight baring down on the top of the waste basket where the tissues belong.
No, I AM NOT OKAY, there is a snake under the waste basket and I have
ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT TO DO NEXT?
After several minutes of discussion, ending with you cannot kill it and are you sure you did not just have a nightmare?
“FINE I will take it outside – but if it is dumb enough to come back, before it is large enough to catch mice, then its safety is NOT assured.”
The boring end to this little adventure. I carried it outside and dumped it into the road (as far as I willing to go in sleepwear.
For those interested in the details. I came back in and sat down to GOOGLE Maryland SNAKES – it appears to be a Black Rat Snake – not a poisonous breed but still not welcome in most people’s beds
Based on the picture in the Wiki entry, it appears to have been a young Black Rat Snake.
Now I need to go call the family herpetologists and find out what to do next
I think I will go read email. Hopefully that will be less exciting.
Wheat
P.S. I solemnly promise never to complain about the odd size card stock used by most YARNandTHREAD manufacturers to make their color cards no matter who awkward it is to try to mail them.
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