Not on a Plane

So the phone rings Wednesday night at quarter til 11.  Both BigDaddyFish and I still have a grandparent, both in their 80s, plus our parents aren't exactly in the best of health.  Add to that I still hadn't heard an update about my cousin's baby, and I automatically assume the worst, as no one calls us that late unless it is an emergency.  BigDaddyFish was already asleep, and I was sitting up in bed reading and well...I was dozing, I think.  I answer the phone, it is my mother in law.

"Oh, sorry, did I wake you?"  Um, what did you think would happen calling that late?  "Can I talk to BDF?"  I tell her he's sleeping and won't wake up (I think I've mentioned that particular affliction of my husband's family), and ask what's up.

"Oh, FIL went down to the kitchen and turned on the light, and there was a snake in the middle of the kitchen floor."  My first thought is, frankly, what the hell do you want us to do about it, since we live an hour away and it is 11 o'clock, but I didn't say that out loud.

"He wasn't bitten or anything.  He caught it and put it in a milk jug.  I think it's a pit viper or something - it tried to strike him when he was catching it.  I'm just trying to figure out how it got in the kitchen."

Motherfucking snakes in the motherfucking kitchen.

Now, I have to tell you that they live on 28 acres in rural Maryland, on the banks of the Antietam Creek.  Most of that land is not "developed";  they used to have sheep grazing, and some hay growing that a sharecropper planted, and some of the land has an unsuccessful vineyard planted.  FIL didn't have the time or a realistic expectation of the work it would take when he bought the place 5 years ago, so everything kinda went to pot.  Then my MIL got Parkinson's, and since then he is her primary caregiver, so he really doesn't have time to work it now.  The sheep have been sold (I kinda miss them), no one is working the rest of the land, unless you count the millions of hours FIL spends cutting the damn grass (we can't convince him it's a farm, let the stuff grow), and they are planning on trying to sell the house soon, as my MIL can't get up and down the steps too well, and it's really just too much house for them.  The house itself was built in about 1910, and has a number of obvious additions as things like indoor plumbing and electricity came into vogue.  Including two porches that you can crawl under if you're brave enough.

I tell her the snake probably just crawled in through the porch.  She asked if we had a book to identify snakes, and I told her we did, and they could borrow it later.  After verifying that everyone was, in fact, fine, I told her I would tell BDF about it in the morning, and I went to bed.  In the morning I told BDF all about it, asked him to kindly remind them NOT to call that damn late unless it is IN FACT an actual emergency, and figured it was the end of it.

I am an idiot. 

Friday my aunt called and asked me to visit my cousin since she was having some problems breastfeeding, and since I couldn't locate my local babysitters I asked the in-laws to come and watch the kidlets, which they did.  BDF came home while I was still at the hospital, and they left before I got home.  I noticed that the snake book was out in our living room when I got home, so I assumed that they identified the snake they had seen and set free.  Isn't that what you'd think?

Today they called and asked if they could come by because they forgot to take the snake book back to their house (Yo, Fishy, clue).  I said sure, we were just watching the football game.  So they came down this afternoon.  With a bowl of watermelon for Sunny.

And the fucking snake, in the milk jug.

I should mention I don't DO snakes.  I hate them.  I am fine with them as long as they stay away from me and mine; I will happily stay away from them.  (Yes, I know, I live in the damn forest.  I've still managed to avoid the damn things - that's partly why we pay the kid down the street a pittance to cut the grass for us)

I made him leave the snake on the porch.  Only my MIL thought it reasonable that I wouldn't want a potentially poisonous snake in the house in a milk jug with a screw on cap with three kids under the age of 7, including a very, very curious 2 year old who has no fear of anything.  Not to mention the pregnant woman and the middle aged woman with Parkinson's who walks very slowly with two canes.  BDF and FIL wanted to bring it in the house.  To warm up.  The cold blooded creature.  Am I the only one who can see this is just gonna piss the thing off?  I might have muttered something about it not needing to be inside, and belonging in its natural habitat, or maybe I just cursed a lot under my breath.

They went outside during commercials, and compared the book with the snake.  They seemed to have some problems deciding, but the main concensus was....

Eastern Copperhead.

I made them put it back in FIL's car.  In the milk jug. 

BDF asked if they wanted an empty fish tank to take back to the house to keep it, and FIL mentioned that he will be setting it free in its natural habitat.  He'd better.

I am not going to the farm until December.  Maybe not even then.  Maybe not until....February. 

Comments

[Uncle Orca]

Hey I have a baby raptor in a styrofoam cooler, can I bring that over? :-)

[Summer]

In one of my off-campus houses during college (St. Mary's, if you're wondering, in southern MD) we had a resident copperhead that lived in the coal cellar, near the water heater. I made a point of never going down there. It was less fun for our friend who came with his uncle's HVAC company to fix our boiler... he later came up and said his job was to hold his flashlight on the snake and make sure it didn't move.

This is why I am always happy to see black snakes around. Black snakes are good. Black snakes are the enemy of copperheads, and anywhere you see a black snake, there will be no copperheads.

Maybe you should get your in-laws a black snake for Christmas. Sounds like they'd love it!

[Carmen]

Oh.My.GOD.

You are giving me the creeps.