Spring is officially here. The one drawback I have about Spring is with its arrival, out come the snakes. I could live my whole life and never ever see another snake and I would be fine!
I was talking to Virginia McClure a few minutes ago and the subject of snakes came up. She hates them as much as I do!! It made me think of a August day back in the 80's, when Tommy was working for Kingdom Telephone Company. It was the first day of school for Melodi. The girls had been teasing me all summer about how lonesome I would be when they all went to school. I would give it right back to them and say I was going to have a party. There would be singing, dancing and laughing up and down our road. We exchanged barbs all summer long.
When the day finally came, I have to admit I was a little sad. I watched the girls get on the bus. Looking very much like stair steps. First Lisa, leading the way, then Tami followed and Melodi was bringing up the rear. She walked a little slower and I thought her backpack might be to big for her to carry. The dogs followed them to the bus, sitting down in the gravel waiting, as the girls climbed the bus steps and rode away.
I knew we had just started a new phase of our lives. I had laundry to do that day and everyday for as long as I could remember. I opened the laundry room door just as the phone rang. It was Mama in Kentucky. She wanted to know if I was crying and how our morning went. I told her all about it. As we were talking, I looked at the pile of clothes in the floor and out crawled a snake!!! I got off the phone with my mom as fast as I could and tried to call Tommy. To say I was scared was to put it mildly. I was terrified.
Tommy worked for the phone company. He was out on a call and could not come to the phone. The lady I was talking to could tell by my voice that something was wrong. I told her about the snake and she was completely on my side. She assured me there was a man working not too far from our house and she would send him over. I thanked her a million times over and waited for a man named Ralph to come to my aid. Ralph was my hero that day!! No doubt about it.
Ralph arrived about 15 minutes later. I ran out the door, pouncing on him as he was getting out of his truck. He was looking around for a certain tool, in the back of his truck, so he could kill the snake. As he was looking, he told me that he was as scared of snakes as I was. I turned him around and pushed him toward the house telling him that "there was no way he could be as scared as I was!" And I pushed him again toward the door.!! Ralph was a little bit taller than me and in no hurry to get in my laundry room.
He opened the laundry room door and I screamed!!! He slammed the door and said, "Did you see the snake?" Ahhh "No, I am just nervous and scared" I replied, sweating profusely. Ralph asked me to be quiet, because I was making him nervous. I tried.
He opened the door again, to begin his search for the snake, under all our dirty clothes. Piece by piece, he picked up and moved our dirty clothes to safety. It did not bother me at all that a stranger was going through my dirty underwear. All I wanted was the snake found and killed. I hit something and a box fell. I ran out of the laundry room and slammed the door. Ralph was right behind me!!! He was breathless as he opened that door. He pushed me out of the way! He let me know in no uncertain terms that I was to never, ever shut that door while he was in there. We agreed and went back in to try this again.
After about 2 hours Ralph said he thought the snake was gone. I wasn't buying that at all. Where did it go? As far as Ralph was concerned, it went back out the hole it came in. He assured me it was gone and he left. I knew it wasn't!
I got a drink of water, took a xanax and slowly opened the laundry room door. There was that damn snake in the middle of the floor!!! I slammed the door and called the phone company again. I explained what was going on. I could hear laughing in the back ground. She said Ralph was still on our road and she would send him back. Thank God. I was about to puke!!!
Ralph gets there and comes back in the house. He said, "So our little problem is back?" I just nodded yes. By now he knows his way around my house and marches to the laundry room and there it was ---just like I said. This time Ralph slams the door! He forgot his tool and had to drag ass back out to the truck to fetch it.
As he came in with his pick, he told me not to look and just stay out of his way. I jumped up in the kitchen chair. I would have gone higher if there had been any place to go. There wasn't.
I heard Ralph in there banging around. I asked him if he was ok. He was in the process of killing the snake. He yelled for me to shut my eyes, and stay out of his way. He was bringing the dead snake out. I heard him laugh when he saw me in the chair. I peeped and saw the snake. I screamed again and Ralph ran out of my house with that snake. Threw it in the road and jumped in his truck. I offered him some water, but he declined. He needed something stronger than water and was never going back in my house. Ok, I understand!
Thirty minutes later the lady from the phone company calls and wants to know how I am doing. Then she starts laughing and telling me what all had been going on at her end of the work day. She put us all on speaker phone and every one who worked for KTIS had kept up with our day, including Tommy!!! I really didn't know what to say. So I thanked her for letting Ralph help out all day. She started laughing again, evidently Ralph had already asked for the next day off. He was not feeling very well. I know exactly how he felt!!!!
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