Eeek! A Snake!
Two actually. Same morning, like venue, two snakes. Oh, too much to bear. The horror of it all! She informed me breathlessly over the telephone that morning WHAT SHE HAD SEEN. Gardener snakes! One, where else? in the rock garden. The other, a little later, by the pond behind the house. Wetland, really. It's spring, after all, and they're enjoying the warmth, cozying up on sun-warmed rocks.
When, several hours later, we had arrived for our usual weekly visit, she waved to us from the glassed-in foyer of the house, but made no move to join us out-of-doors, although the dogs did, bursting forth in a wild froth of collective joy at their liberation as though they're normally kept so cruelly as prisoners in the house. Our daughter was at the side of the house, mowing the grass there, the last bit to be done that day.
All of us wanted to be outside, enjoying a truly glorious day of sunshine, mild temperatures and gentle breezes. When I poked my head into the foyer and called for her to join us, a disembodied voice came floating back at me declaring the out-of-doors off limits. Forever. Off went my shoes and in I went to confront the recalcitrant child.
No, Bubbe! I can't! Didn't I explain it to you already? Two snakes, I saw two snakes! Well, I told her, they likely weren't too thrilled to see her, as a matter of fact. They probably coiled themselves back in shock and slithered away in panic once their sense of self-preservation kicked in. They probably babbled to their great big mother snake about the horrid experience they'd just had, coming face to face with...a human kid!
Very funny, Boob, said she, very funny. I mean it. I.will.not.go.out! Never!not.ever.Again!!
In fact, she stayed in the house, poor traumatized kid. For a while, anyway. Eventually I was conscripted to play jump-rope with her, and throw her hula-hoop at her, in the unusual absence of one or more of her girlfriends who are usually there to whoop it up with her. Could be they heard about the snakes, too.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, May 31, 2006
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