There's a snake in my boou-doir!
This is an activation of the emergency posting system. I have been planning a fun, EPIC DR. WHO SCARF POST for some days now, but my apartment is still not quite clean enough to take any pictures in - heh.
However, I think this merits posting about RIGHT THE FRAK NOW. I just woke up (yes, I just woke up twenty minutes ago) to my two cats standing over what was either a dead snake or an extremely long, coiled, greyish hairball. (Either one of which is not a great way to start the day).
Except it was a snake, and it wasn't dead.
Because I went into the kitchen for a tupperware, and when I got back, it was no longer in plain sight, and my cat was stalking it behind the bedroom bookcase. I have no idea how close she really was to catching it, but she was making pouncing, poking movements, so she may have been in direct contact with the thing, for all I could tell.
Now, this might be a good time to mention that I am not afraid of snakes in general, and that this one looked plenty harmless. (Very small, with the long, length-wise yellow stripes - your classic garter snake, I think). But I am afraid of: a) doing something stupid that gets me bitten by a poisonous snake, and b) my cat doing something stupid that gets her bitten by a poisonous snake - or, really, any snake. And I say 'her,' because the two cats were both very clearly interested in the snake, but baby girl (my sweet, shy, harmless little girlcat - the one that shrinks if you come around a corner too fast) is a total daredevil when it comes to gravity and death-defying feats and also apparently the dogged Javier of fluffy, wide-eyed little gray cats. She would not leave that snake alone, and it was the only way that I could tell where the snake was hiding or how far he had moved.
I decided, as paranoid as it made me to do this, that I had to shut the door of the bedroom with me and the cats on one side and the snake on the other. No cats would mean the snake would be free to do as he chose, undetected: Curl up in on of my shoes. Nestle himself inside my pillow case. Leave forever without telling anyone, so that I'd be convinced he was in one of my shoes, anyway. Or come under the door to the living room, where we were hiding out, frantically googling local snakes (it would take me, like, TWO HOURS to read the list I found) and trying to pick up enough to call animal control without humiliations galore.
The snake chose the latter. Next thing I know, I look over and baby girl is poking something again, because the snake is oozing out from under the bedroom door. He got behind my two bookcases by the time I called animal control, but - fortuitously - he made it all the way to the front door on his own while I was still explaining the situation to the policeman who picked up. (They make the 911 operators answer the animal control number, here??? Animals are sometimes emergencies, but not always...) 'Ooh, ooh,' I said to the nice policeman, 'He's at the front door! I think I'll open it and let him out!'
Except the cats ran out instead of the snake, spooking him, so the policeman said to sweep him out with a broom, which petrified the snake, which made it take a lot longer than you might think. But the cats came in and the snake went out, and last I saw he was having an altercation with a large grackle on the cement walkway outside my apartment door, inching closer and closer to a one-story drop. I hope my snake MacGyvered himself out of that one, because I wish him no ill will. But I stopped up the crack in the doorframe, nonetheless, because I do not want the snake MacGyvering himself back in here.
Whew.
But from now on I have to wonder if there are any other snakes in here. Curled up in one of my shoes. Nestled in my pillowcase.
However, I think this merits posting about RIGHT THE FRAK NOW. I just woke up (yes, I just woke up twenty minutes ago) to my two cats standing over what was either a dead snake or an extremely long, coiled, greyish hairball. (Either one of which is not a great way to start the day).
Except it was a snake, and it wasn't dead.
Because I went into the kitchen for a tupperware, and when I got back, it was no longer in plain sight, and my cat was stalking it behind the bedroom bookcase. I have no idea how close she really was to catching it, but she was making pouncing, poking movements, so she may have been in direct contact with the thing, for all I could tell.
Now, this might be a good time to mention that I am not afraid of snakes in general, and that this one looked plenty harmless. (Very small, with the long, length-wise yellow stripes - your classic garter snake, I think). But I am afraid of: a) doing something stupid that gets me bitten by a poisonous snake, and b) my cat doing something stupid that gets her bitten by a poisonous snake - or, really, any snake. And I say 'her,' because the two cats were both very clearly interested in the snake, but baby girl (my sweet, shy, harmless little girlcat - the one that shrinks if you come around a corner too fast) is a total daredevil when it comes to gravity and death-defying feats and also apparently the dogged Javier of fluffy, wide-eyed little gray cats. She would not leave that snake alone, and it was the only way that I could tell where the snake was hiding or how far he had moved.
I decided, as paranoid as it made me to do this, that I had to shut the door of the bedroom with me and the cats on one side and the snake on the other. No cats would mean the snake would be free to do as he chose, undetected: Curl up in on of my shoes. Nestle himself inside my pillow case. Leave forever without telling anyone, so that I'd be convinced he was in one of my shoes, anyway. Or come under the door to the living room, where we were hiding out, frantically googling local snakes (it would take me, like, TWO HOURS to read the list I found) and trying to pick up enough to call animal control without humiliations galore.
The snake chose the latter. Next thing I know, I look over and baby girl is poking something again, because the snake is oozing out from under the bedroom door. He got behind my two bookcases by the time I called animal control, but - fortuitously - he made it all the way to the front door on his own while I was still explaining the situation to the policeman who picked up. (They make the 911 operators answer the animal control number, here??? Animals are sometimes emergencies, but not always...) 'Ooh, ooh,' I said to the nice policeman, 'He's at the front door! I think I'll open it and let him out!'
Except the cats ran out instead of the snake, spooking him, so the policeman said to sweep him out with a broom, which petrified the snake, which made it take a lot longer than you might think. But the cats came in and the snake went out, and last I saw he was having an altercation with a large grackle on the cement walkway outside my apartment door, inching closer and closer to a one-story drop. I hope my snake MacGyvered himself out of that one, because I wish him no ill will. But I stopped up the crack in the doorframe, nonetheless, because I do not want the snake MacGyvering himself back in here.
Whew.
But from now on I have to wonder if there are any other snakes in here. Curled up in one of my shoes. Nestled in my pillowcase.