The bug guy was here again today, to do our quarterly pest control as well as rodent maintenance.
As he was leaving he said, “Yeah, it’s a good thing we got the rat situation under control when we did because, you know what rats attract in the summer?”
He was laughing as he said this. My mind had totally stopped functioning, unable to imagine a new, potential creature-related horror.
Did I mention that he was laughing as he said, “I just love scaring you. In the summer, rats attract SNAKES.”
As I have mentioned here before, I am irrationally paralyzed with terror at the mere idea of snakes. So this information did not bode well for my ever leaving the house again.
So then, apparently having exhausted his repertoire of rodent lore, he began to explain to me IN DETAIL, the behavior of snakes. And do you know what he said to me? He told me that two of the places I was convinced harbored imaginary snakes actually are The Two Places In Our Lawn Where We Most Certainly Will Have Snakes In The Summertime. So, you’d better believe I told that to my husband, Mr. “We-don’t-have-any-snakes-so-stop-being-a-baby-and-come-and-walk-on-the-lawn”. HA!
Then, in the tone of someone offering me a special prize he said, “Yeah, this summer I’ll pull back your pine straw and check and see what kind of snakes you have.” I believe my voice rose to the tone and pitch that only dogs and alien beings can hear when I said, “Please don’t ever, EVER share that information with me !”
“OK,” he said. “What I can do is just kill it and then nail it to the side of your house so your husband can see it when he gets home.”
Clearly he was not going to allow any censorship when it came to the dissemination of the information on what snakes live in our yard.
Clearly, I can never leave my house again.
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