And On a Lighter Note...

Once upon a time, I wrangled a snake out of my apartment.  Long about the time I was flinging his writhing body over the balcony I thought, "This is why I need a big, burly man in my life. So that I'm not the one wrestling vermin out of my house."  

(Note:  This is not me.  Thank you Google Images for perfectly conveying my feelings about snake-wrangling)

 

It was a Sunday morning, the one day in which I unabashedly allow myself to sleep until my body is done sleeping.  And I was.  Sleeping, that is.  Peacefully, soundly, unaware of the world when a knock pulled me out of my slumber.

As I mumbled a croaking/throat-clearing/I-sound-like-a-dude, "yeah?", I heard my roommate say she needed help and asked to open the door.

Forever etched in my brain, her words rang out, "There is a snake in my bathroom.  I'm not kidding, there is a snake in my bathroom."

There are a few facts that I think are worth mentioning.  Firstly, I live on the third floor of an apartment building.  I have to climb 42 stairs to get to my front door. Secondly, when I say I was sleeping, I mean that I was SLEEPING, as in I was not lazily dozing, I was not laying with my eyes closed while avoiding getting out of bed, I was conked out sleeping.  Jumpstarting your brain from sawing logs to fight-or-flight-let's-deal-with-a-snake mode is not an easy feat.  Thirdly, I live on the third floor.  Fourthly, my roommate was standing in my doorway with wet hair and clutching her bathrobe around her body.  Even in my sleepy haze, I knew she was in no state to wrangle a snake.  And lastly, we live on the third floor! What in tarnation was a snake doing way the heck up there???  One of the perks of climbing 42 stairs to get to my living space is that insects/rodents/reptiles should not be there!

But, I digress.

Jarred out of my slumber, I sat up in bed and had one and only one thing on my mind, "We need to get the snake out of the apartment."  I do believe I said this, very Rainman-like, no less than 17 times as I paced around quickly gathering my snake-wrangling equipment.

When I was a teenager, I went to Girls' Camp every summer.  This week-long camping adventure with the other youth-aged girls at my church was designed to teach us how to survive in the wilderness. Such skills involved starting a campfire with a tampon (name-brand works better than off-brand, by the way), mastering the four-legged race with Melissa and Audriana (the trick is to number the legs), and learning to blow snot rockets while choreographing synchronized swimming routines (thanks goes to Melissa for that one).  At no time in this wilderness preparation did I learn how to wrangle a snake.

Convinced I was faced with mortal peril if I did not, as stated previously, "get the snake out of the apartment", I prepared myself for battle.  For your own future reference, I will tell you that you only need 3 things to abscond with a snake.  They are, in no particular order:

Item #1:  A hoodie.

It helps if you put the hood up (I did.).  Also, sleeves that cinch tightly around your wrists are preferable to loosey-goosey sleeves up which a snake could slither.  Because, as I'm sure you know, the only thing worse than a snake in your apartment is a snake in your shirt.  So, tightly-cuffed hoodie.  With the hood up.

Item #2:  One single gardening glove.

Of course, in your dash to "get the snake out of the apartment", you may be so lucky to find the other gardening glove, which would be preferred.  But, I am here to witness that one will work just fine.  You will want to put your single gardening glove on your non-dominant hand, because you'll need your other hand to operate....

Item #3:  Barbeque tongs.

Now, I know it seems crazy that you would use tongs to wrestle a snake.  You are not picking up the snake with the tongs, silly, you're using the tongs to pick up the toiletry bag that your roommate has told you is harboring the snake.  Per the story she has been telling you as you've been dashing about the apartment gathering your supplies, you learn that she stepped out of the shower to come face to face with a snake coiling up out of her bag.  You are hoping against all hope that the snake was just as startled to see her as she was to see it in nothing but the skin the good Lord gave her, and is still in the bag.

That's it.  That's all you need.  A hoodie, one single gardening glove, and barbeque tongs.

Battle gear assembled, I stepped into the bathroom.  Sure enough, the snake was slithering it's scaly little head back out of her bag.  Knowing I had .7 seconds to make my move before that snake slithered out of its temporary home (read:  it would no longer be contained!), I looped those tongs through the handle of her bag, supported it with my gloved hand, and had that thing out of the bathroom, through the living room and out onto the balcony in no less than 2 seconds.  By the time the snake and I had gotten to the balcony, it was slithering up my arm (now do you see the importance of those tight cuffs???) and in one fell swoop I flinged it (flung it?  flang it?) right over the railing and watched it land on the grass below. (Now, don't worry, all you PETA people, it slithered away - I saw it.  It was fine, I'm sure.)

Because I know you're dying to know...No, we have no idea how the snake got into the apartment and no, we have not (thank heavens!) seen another one.

Seriously, thank heavens.

And while I am certain this informative tutorial regarding snake-wrangling preparation would help with all of your snake-absconding needs, may you never have need of it.  Amen.

p.s. Lest I deceive you, this was not a snake like unto a 30-foot python.  It was but a little snake, probably a garter or garden snake.  This does not, however, in any way lessen the ickiness at having to deal with it.  Someday, someday, I hope my big, burly man will take care of all these things.  I hope.