Animal control

This morning I let our dog out as soon as I woke up. About a minute later I heard her barking but it was kind of a weird bark. Usually if she sees someone, she goes crazy. She is very protective of the kids. But this was more like lots of little, quick barks together with pauses in between. After a minute or two, I was annoyed and figured my next door neighbor was too. Quickly I opened the back door and said, "What is wrong with you?" And then I saw it! Two feet away from my door was a snake! A good-sized snake. Not a grass snake, a real snake! I screamed so loud that I made baby Zeke start crying. I slammed the door shut! After slamming the door, I realize I have left the poor dog outside. She continued to bark. A minute later I work up the nerve to let her in. The snake still sitting all curled up with it's head up. I've only seen pictures of snakes doing this but now I have a show off of Animal Planet on my back porch! WHY DID I NOT TAKE A PICTURE?

Of course I ran to the phone to call Jeremy. He said, "What does it look like?" I reply."Well, don't laugh but it looks like a rattle snake! (he chuckles) Seriously Babe, it does!" He explains that he will not be able to come home and kill it so we hang up and Josiah begins to yell, "Animal control! Call Animal control!" It was almost like a scene from "Diego"! I truly believe Josiah envisioned some guy coming through the backyard yelling "Diego to the rescue!" and us chanting "Go Diego, Go! Go Diego, GO!". Instead of calling Animal Control, I call Heidi!

Heidi has dealt with all sorts of things and driven to my house in a matter of sixty seconds to help me as water is gushing out of the pool filter (she has the same pool) or to drop off feminine products because I'm out (that was yesterday). She lives down the road so I figure if anyone can help me, she can! Sadly, as soon as I explain my snake issue, she tells me "THIS IS NOT SOMETHING I CAN HELP YOU WITH! CALL ANIMAL CONTROL!" I have to be honest folks, I was disappointed. Heidi is my go-to for everything and now she has wimped out on me! Heidi, I expected more from you.

So I call Animal Control and guess what? Apparently "Animal Control" consists of one woman who drives the "Animal Control" truck around town and she was off today. Frankly, I think she's off everyday because she was no where when I was spraying two mean dogs with my mace during a long run a few weeks ago. You never plan to use mace and when you have to, it's very scary. Animal Control my butt!

Since Animal Control is "off work" today, I'm transferred to dispatch for the county then dispatched to our town/city and finally almost forty minutes later, a not very tough police officer shows up! I think there must be a lot of officers afraid of snakes so they ended up arguing over their radios and finally meeting in person to decide who would come take care of the snake! That had to have be what happened because he took forever to get here (hoping the snake would be gone) and by the looks of his face, he lost several rounds of paper, rocks, scissors! Of course I get stuck with the wimpy cop! He even asked me to put my dog up when he got here. How dare him!

Slowly, he creeps outside the back door with a "stick" he pulls out of his holster! Clearly he was sick the day the Police Academy made them practice "how to get a snake out of some one's backyard". I truly believe this officer would have pulled out his gun if I wouldn't have been standing out there watching him. We had two beach towels laying on the porch and I would have given anything to scream "BOO" as he pulled those towels up with the stick! As he lifted the towels, he made sure his feet were FAR, FAR from the towels. Actually, his stance was pretty impressive. Oh whatever! No it wasn't! He was a chicken! A wimp! But hey, I'm the one who called for help!

You must be wondering what happened to the snake. Right? Well, I think you know. We have no idea where the snake is! But I will never, ever open the back door the same way again!

Next time I'll call Diego!

Jeremy wants to move us out to the country in a couple of years. He may be rethinking it after my frantic phone call today. :)