I've lived in Texas for nearly ten years. Before I moved here, we had a going away party, and a client of mine brought a date who just went on and on about how she hated Texas because of the snakes.
She told stories of them climbing through the air conditioning ducts, and I'll admit she had me a bit freaked out. So one of the first things I did with my boys (who were little guys of 4 and 7 at the time) was make an education lesson out of an early trip to the Tyler Zoo. We went in the reptile house and learned everything we needed to know about snakes in Texas. (Basically what I learned was that if their head is shaped like an arrow, it IS poisonous.) Most snakes in Texas, I learned, were not poisonous, although some can grow to a relatively large size, and they all freak me out.
That visit to the reptile house aside, over the years, I have had very few encounters with snakes. My kids, by nature of being boys running around near a lake, and at friend's homes in the country, have seen more snakes than I. But we lived on the lake for eight years, and in that time I think we had one tiny snake in our breezeway, one (maybe two) tiny snakes in our swimming pool, and one or two instances where I saw a BIG snake in the lake or on our beach. I would say that's a fairly low snake siting incidence for that many years.
I got home from somewhere on Sunday to find out that my oldest son and his friend had killed a snake. Not in a field near our house. Not somewhere in the woods on the golf course. They had killed a snake IN MY OFFICE.
Now I wasn't home, thank goodness, but my husband insists that this particular snake probably took up residence last week when I had the door to my office wide open. There was a great breeze last Thursday, and I was having a meeting here, and I had opened the door to let the breezes and the sunshine flow freely in. I did not invite that snake. If the snake came in on Thursday, that means it was in here with me on Friday when I was working. I was in and out of the office a little on Saturday, with the snake, and then on Sunday my son came out to play the drums or lift weights or who knows what, and stepped on it.
Fortunately, my son's friend, our next door neighbor, was here, and he knew just what to do. He went to the kitchen to the knife block, grabbed a cleaver, came back to the office, and chopped the snake's head off. I am so glad I was not here, and I'm so glad I've never used (and will never use) that cleaver.
Now before you get this horrible picture in your head (like I did), understand that this snake was maybe 10 inches long and skinny. But it had fangs, and my husband said the mouth was still moving up and down when he picked up the head, but what shape the head was, I do not know. The boys were all to happy to kill it. Cleaning it up responsibilities went to my spouse. I'm just glad it happened on a weekend, because I did not have to see it or clean it up.
Anyway, now while I'm writing news releases and optimizing web copy, and conferencing with clients, I'm also looking over my shoulder. I often go outside to get some air and to proofread, and now I'm looking for snakes before I even take my first step out. It's a little freaky. I have a small foot stool under my desk where I keep my feet now -- up off the floor. I know snakes can slither up the legs of anything, but in case there was more than one...in case that little guy had a brother or sister, or heaven forbid a whole nest of brothers and sisters, I've got my eyes peeled.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing it. I guess it's on my mind. I don't think they deal with this sort of thing in corporate America, do they?
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