Unfortunately . . .

. . . this is not a rubber snake.

A few weeks ago I was in my bedroom with Brenna while Kaylee and Ashlyn played in the livingroom. Ashlyn came back and said, "Mom, come and see something." I was thinking she must have made some sort of mess or something. But then she said, "There are snakes!" I was thinking, no way is there a snake in our house - it's probably just a worm or something.

I was wrong. She was right.

I glanced toward the livingroom and saw something long and black slithering next to the front door. I put Brenna down and grabbed some shoes and gloves. By the time I got to the front door it was gone. I cautiously looked around and moved a few items, but found no snake. At that point I assumed (hoped) it had gone back outside.

Wrong.

A little while later I saw it again, near the dining room table. I put on my gloves (I had kept my shoes on - too afraid to take them off) and watched it move into a corner. At that point Ashlyn came out and saw it and made some sort of loud noise, which scared it into crawling under the door of the coat closet. I called Russ then, making sure I kept an eye on the closet, and we decided it would be best to trap it inside the closet and deal with it later (like when Russ got home from school). I shoved a big towel next to the door and hoped that would do the trick.

Fast forward a few hours - Russ is home and the girls are all in bed. Time to get rid of the snake. Russ moved things out of the closet while I cautiously watched from behind the couch. He found it near the back of the closet and tried to shoo it out with a broom, which only made the snake mad. We would have let it live, if it would have been more cooperative. But in the end, Russ killed it.

This is the book he smashed it with. Thank you "Don Quixote".

My hero. He said he wasn't scared of it, but I don't believe him, since he wouldn't touch it, even with gloves on.

And this is what our house looked like after the fiasco was over.