Snaaaaaaaaaake

My brave, idiot cat, Luna is a mouser. She stalks and attacks critters that invade her home. She’s kind of awesome that way. She also sometimes just sees crap and stalks it vigilantly. Today, she swiped at something in my basement office and I heard a sound that sounded a bit more agitated than a wounded cricket trying to get away from her.

I ran upstairs to quickly find a flashlight so I could see what she was stalking. I shone the light and saw what appeared, briefly, to be a coiled up computer cord of some variety. All in all, not too unusual. Not until it moved.

The following chat conversation then occurred between me and the husband:

Me: Snake. There’s a snake in my office.

Trey: You are worried she found one or she did? Oh shit. Can you get a picture of it?

Me: no. It is hiding I don’t want to disturb it.

Trey: Ok well take the cat and yourself out of the office and close it up.

Me: I grabbed a flashlight to see what it was. The snake can get out of my office if it wants.

Trey: Ok. Um could you get a good look at it?

Me: It’s black.

Trey: Ok that is good. Solid black yes?

Me: Yes. It’s also kinda big.

Trey: Ok good. It’s not poisonous, then if it is just a black snake.

I kicked Luna out of the office because she was still fascinated by the snake, we’ll call him Lucius. She was still fascinated by Lucius and I was pretty sure she was bound and determined to make him pay for making her dinner late.

While Trey drove home, I spent the next hour looking up different Maryland snakes, snake removal, snake infestation horror stories, and shining my light on Lucius to ensure he hadn’t moved.

Lucius is a Black Rat Snake. Removing snakes from your home, you should cover them with a blanket and call someone to take care of the critter, or sweep it into a box or bucket and release your snake buddy out into the wild away from your house.

Somewhere in the space of a 10 minute block of time where I hadn’t checked on Lucius, he fucking moved. I could not find him. By that time Trey had gotten home, so he could help find Lucius. My hero!

He started taking apart my office looking in the various crevices Lucius had previously occupied. No joy. (Tiny upside, my office got a little cleaner out of the deal) Trey was convinced Lucius had left our abode and I asked if he had looked under my desk.

Um… Hi?

He clearly had not. Because that is where Lucius had relocated… In the 10 minutes I wasn’t monitoring his progress, he MOVED CLOSER TO ME! YAY!

Trey tried to get him out from under that small corner of desk using a long closet dowel. That didn’t really work. Lucius poked his head out to say hello, but otherwise, just crawled back under. The whole time, Trey kept saying, “Wow. I’m glad you didn’t realize how huge this snake is, you would have been much more panicked!” Thanks, sweetie, you’re a helper.

At one point, Lucius, thoroughly pissed, brought his head out, coiled sideways very much ready to strike and fuck us up. We backed off, but unfortunately, he tried to find somewhere else to go hide.

That’s when he crawled into my computer.

Me: I think he’s in my computer!

Trey: How would he get in your computer!?

Me: Because there’s a big hole back there!

Trey: …Oh.

My computer, unfortunately, was still on. Shut it down and Trey veeeeeerrrrry gingerly pulled the computer off the shelf and unplugged all the wires. Still no sign of Lucius anywhere behind the desk. “Oh! Yep! He’s in your computer!” -_-

Well, he made it easier to get him in something to get out of our house!

Trey threw a blanket over the back of the computer and out of the house we went. We put the computer on the grass in our yard and tried to figure out whether we would let him crawl out or open up the side of the case and give him a bigger egress.

He took the decision out of our hands when he poked his head back out the back of my computer. He sniffed around seemingly very excited by the prospect of outside sniffs. And a 4-foot Black Rat Snake, formerly of my basement office, found new digs at the base of the pine tree in our front yard.

No offense, dude, but let’s not do this ever again, k?