Snake!

I hate snakes. It's biblical. Remember in Genesis when the serpent convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit? And then Adam did and God found out? Then when it all came out, God told the serpent he'd have to crawl on his belly and that there would be enmity between the serpent and the woman. Enmity means hostility or hatred. Therefore, there is enmity between me and any snake I happen to come into contact with, especially when he decides to enter my home.

Last Thursday, the kids and I were getting ready to go to the library for preschool story time. I told the boys to go to their rooms to get shoes. They both went to Elijah's room, so Melia and I went to Ezra's room. Right about Ezra's shoe basket was a hole that Ronnie had to put in the wall in order to work on the bath tub faucet in the next room. I'd been after him to patch it up for awhile, but it hadn't been done. I was standing in the bedroom, looking down in the shoe basket, when some movement caught my eye. There was a snake crawling into my house through that hole! I lost it! I started screaming and yelled at the boys to get out of the house. They had no clue what was going on, but they started screaming and took off.

I ran to the phone and called Ronnie. Being 3.5 hours away, there wasn't really anything he could do. He said he'd get someone over here, but I told him it wouldn't matter because there was no way I was hanging around waiting on them. When we hung up, I went back to Ezra's room, but didn't see the snake. I wasn't about to go looking for him, so I shut the door and sealed the room off by shoving towels under it. Then I got out of there until Ronnie could get home.

When I got home that night, Ronnie had looked through the room, but had no luck finding the snake. But he was sweet and moved Ezra's bed to the other room. The door was shut again and the towels replaced.

Friday, Ronnie repeated the search. He went through the room, looked in all the dresser drawers, and messed around in the closet. (The closet is messy because that's where all my craft stuff is and it is far from organized here lately.) No snake.

On Saturday, my dear husband decided it was time to patch the hole. Finally. He did a good job and I was appreciative. He looked again, but found no slithering critter. He assured me that the snake had more than likely gone back out the way it had entered. After all that time, the door was left open, but Ezra stayed in the other room.

Monday morning, Ronnie got up and left like normal. I got up, sent Ethan to school, and then I took the other kids to my mom's so I could help her out some. We got home in time to get Ethan off the bus, to do homework and fix supper before heading to church for revival. Things were going well.

Then I had to go to the bathroom. Sorry if this is TMI. I was sitting there when a movement caught my eye at the full length mirror across from me. It was that stupid snake. I jumped up and ran out the bathroom and then out the front door. The boys followed me. I was looking for the shovel, but I couldn't find it. I started looking for anything to kill that booger with. He wasn't getting away again! (In my mind I was trying to figure out how to get everything we would need for the rest of the week in 2 seconds in case my plan to kill this thing didn't work.) Looking around our yard, I saw a tomato plant and there was a porch rail that Ronnie had used to stake the plant. I ran over to it, yanked it out of the dirt, ripped the plant off of it and started back inside. I yelled for Ethan to get Melia and to keep everyone outside.

In the bathroom, the snake was still where he had been. I stepped onto the bath tub and rammed his body with my stick. He took off under a box that was sitting at the wall. I used the stick to throw the box out of the way and started jabbing him with the stick. I couldn't see his head because he went under a pile of clothes, so I was hitting his body. That's when he brought his head out and struck of the the stick. I tried to hit his head, but missed again and he struck again. I just kept hitting him with the stick with all I had, the whole time praying out loud for God to please help me because I couldn't do this. Finally, I hit his head and he stopped striking. I hit him a couple more times for good measure and walked out of the bathroom.

I called my daddy and asked him to come dispose of the corpse, then I called Ronnie to tell him that I had gotten the snake. Neither of them could hardly understand me because I could barely talk. I could barely breathe and I was shaking like never before. I walked outside to where my babies were and fell on the ground. I just sat there, shaking, until my daddy got there.

My sweet daddy went in and got the snake out. He made sure it was dead and then disposed of it for me.

I had trouble sleeping last night because I kept seeing that snake every time I closed my eyes. But I am thankful for many things in this situation. I'm thankful that I was the one who saw it both times. If the boys had seen it in their room, they probably would have picked it up, thinking it was a toy. I'm thankful it didn't bother my babies while they were sleeping. I'm thankful it didn't bite anyone. And I'm thankful that God gave me the strength and courage to kill it, because that wasn't me.