Demonic Deeds

I know she's ugly. But don't make too much fun of her, she's 17.

My cat is a demon. She likes demonic things like snakes. She’ll stalk them, play with them and then when she’s good and ready she’ll bring the living, unharmed snakes into the house.

In the Willamette Valley, where I live, there are no poisonous snakes. We have garter snakes. No big deal, unless you’re from Texas. In Texas there are killer snakes. There are all types of rattlesnakes, water moccasins, copper heads, cotton mouths and who knows what else is creeping around there. Point being that if you grow up in Texas you’re taught that snakes are deadly. I’ve come foot to fang a little too often and I’m terrified of snakes.

Callie, the cat of compassion, must have thought we were too stupid to find our own play things so she brought a nice, fat, 2 ft long garter snake into the house. My kids have never seen a poisonous snake, they have no fear of them.

The little ones ran off to find a jar to contain the nasty thing. The slithering serpent was a trophy and had to be shown to their dad. Soon they were back holding a 2 gallon pickle jar, without a lid. I should have nixed the idea at that point, but the kids really wanted to show their father.

They wrangled the snake into the jar and covered it with a piece of foil. Really? A piece of foil? How totally stupid was that? Bottom line is that the snake escaped from the jar and was somewhere in the house. That was almost more than I could take, but as the days went by I grew more comfortable with the fact that the snake had found its way outside.

About four days had passed when I was pretty sure the damn thing was gone. I went to get a glass out of the dishwasher, bent over and opened the door. The snake lunged at me and hit me in square in the face! It's mouth was open and I swear I saw that freaking forked tongue flicking at me. I screamed a scream that I’m sure was heard throughout the neighborhood. I was doomed to die at the fangs of a non-poisonous snake, probably from a terror induced heart attack.

Two of my kids were sitting on the couch. After hearing my blood curdling scream my daughter said, “Mom must have cut herself again.” My son shook his head and said, “Nope, she FOUND the snake.”