Climbing Mount Random

After my trauma last week, in which I pulled a living snake from the nose of my cat, I'm still having random spasms of "EWWWW!"   I am not sure why the whole episode is still resonating on my girlie meter, but it is.  I would like to say that this is the oddest thing that has ever happened to me, but that's like tempting the fates and completely discounting my college years.  Zena did bring me another snake, but she wisely did not try to eat it or kill it.  She was also nice enough to leave it on the patio instead of in her nose, so I was able to catch it(it was a Brown snake), and release it outside of our yard.  Any creature that eats bugs is welcome, as long as I don't see them.  Are there any invisible bug-eating creatures? I didn't think so.  Maybe if there is a zombie apocalypse, they'll eat insects instead of brains.  That might not make the news, but it certainly would be beneficial.

I sometimes wonder if politics would be so horrifically extremist if the media didn't report a word of it.  Seems to me that if there wasn't a camera stuck in people's faces, you wouldn't be hearing all the politicians whine when they don't get their way and call each other names.  You know that behind closed doors, they are all best friends! That is how politics works in the real world--relationships are all.  I would like for the media to film Congress 24/7.  A reality show.  Also, I think that they should electrify all of the seats in Congress, so that if somebody says something stupid, their colleagues can shock them.  I would say to let the voters shock them, but you know how that would turn out.

This Lego minifigure cracks me up.  That is all.

My cat Pounce follows me everywhere when I am upstairs.  She will jump up next to me, get comfy, and doze off.  She purrs the entire time she does this.  Purring is so relaxing to listen to that I often start to nod off.  Even if I just woke up.  If we could bottle that, the stress levels of America would fall, and we'd all sleep better.

Why do little boys smell so sweet?  My son, when I can hold him still long enough, smells like candy or cookies.  Even when he is all sweaty and dirty, that heavenly smell is underlying the stinky.  I am sure that it is some sort of survival technique for when a boy brings a live frog into the house, or when he gets his best clothes all dirty.  It certainly is difficult to stay mad at someone who smells like cake.  I guess that when he doesn't smell like that anymore, he's grown up?  That will be a sad day, I think.

What is with all those obnoxious commercials on the cartoon channels?  Stuffies?  Really?  Are you serious?   Do you know how many horribly off color jokes that I--*cough* --someone can come up with for that product name alone?  Do you know how hard it is to NOT think about any of those jokes?  

I am linking up today with these fine people who make me smile and laugh.  Go check them out!















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Snakes Are Not So Bad

I am not afraid of snakes.

You read that right.

I am a girl and I am not afraid of snakes.

I will not kill a snake, unless it is poisonous and in my yard. Maybe not even then. My policy--they go their way, and I go mine. Everyone is happy, and nobody dies.

Throw a snake into the mix, anywhere, anytime, and people lose their minds. Except in Sweetwater, Texas, where they have that Rattlesnake Roundup yearly for the tourists.

The one that ends up suffering is the snake. Odds are good that the snake wants to leave the scene when a human shows up, because snakes see us as a threat. Since some of us lose our minds and act like idiots around them by trying to kill them, the snakes are right to fear us.

Snakes serve a purpose, believe it or not. They kill and eat mice, rats, and other critters which would otherwise explode in population. Mice and rats can carry various diseases that are harmful to people, in addition to getting into our homes and eating our food. The snakes are doing us a favor by taking care of them before they get into our house. Just the thought of a mouse or a rat in the house gives me the heebie-jeebies, even though I know that my cats would immediately locate and kill it. I don't want to have to get blood and rat guts out of the carpet.

I am not afraid of snakes. However, my husband is terrified of them. Frozen in his tracks, eyes bulging, heart pumping, hyperventilating--just plain scared. There's no rhyme or reason for his fear--I have the same initial reaction to cockroaches.

It's not the fear. It's the overreaction that bothers me.

The best antidote to fear is knowledge. Learn what kinds of snakes live in your area and what they look like. Learn how likely you are to see a particular kind of snake. I have only seen ONE poisonous snake in my entire life, for instance. (I imagine that if I lived on a farm or in the woods, I would see more, but I am a city chick.)

If you do see a poisonous snake, don't shoot it. Nobody has good aim when they are screaming their head off. Don't try to catch it, because you'll end up getting bitten, and anti-venom is expensive. Call animal control. They have people specially trained to handle these situations without getting bitten.

The Scream

I was five or six years old. We lived in El Paso, Texas. We were getting ready to go somewhere, so I was sitting on the couch waiting for everyone else. I can't remember if my brother was in the room with me, but my dad was somewhere else in the house.

My mother is walking to the door, talking to us. As she opens the door, the sunlight that spills joyfully into the living room blinds me and I put my hand up to cover my eyes. I can only see the lower half of my mom's body as she pushes open the screen door, and then she is screaming.

She is screaming and jumping around.

She is screaming, jumping around, and flailing her arms.

My mother is screaming, jumping around, and flailing her arms.

It is the first time I've ever heard my mother scream.

It is the first time I've ever seen my mother afraid.

It's the first time I've ever seen my mother go completely batshit crazy.

I'm fascinated.

My father rushes in by this time to save the day. A tiny garter snake had somehow climbed to the top of the screen door and fell on my mother when she opened the door. I was surprised that the poor snake hadn't keeled over from a heart attack with all the screaming my mother was doing. Once the snake was safely inside a coffee can with holes poked in the lid, my family went on about our day. The snake was later released somewhere which did not involve screaming housewives.