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Snakes, Pit Stops, and Peasants

   Written by on July 31, 2015 at 11:43 am

One frequent topic of debate in our home is the fact that I have difficulty completing projects on what Management considers a reasonable time frame. Her theory is that projects should be completed in a day, week, or year. As always, I absolutely agree with her. The problem is that she thinks the day, week or year should be the one we are living in now, while I believe all days are created equal. I am non-discriminatory. Today, tomorrow and “one day next Thursday” are equally good days and I don’t intend to treat one day any differently than another.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

Last night, The Godmother of my Bratlets reminded me of “The Snake in The Wall” incident. I had forgotten it. Apparently, it made more impression on her than it did on me. This is often the case. For some reason, other people let minor and insignificant incidents take precedent over more important stuff. I remember that day distinctly; it was the day the coffee pot broke (now, that is important).

On that day, one of the snakes escaped from its cage. Management and I had reached a compromise where I was allowed to keep a few snakes as long as they were securely in cages.

This was working somewhat acceptably until Marie Antoinette vacated her premises. Marie was an Eastern King snake and one of my favorites. I acquired her when she was being attacked by a peasant with a garden hoe who was attempting to remove her head. Fortunately, for Marie, it was a clumsy and frightened peasant who was running up, closing his eyes, and taking a chop at her. He was doing lots of damage but most of it superficial. The original Marie should have been blessed with peasants this clumsy.

I sewed her up and she looked like Franken-snake. She was doing fine other than some vision problems. Her depth perception was off and she would always strike at her food three inches to the side. I discovered this during her recuperation. I was holding a mouse for her and she got my finger. Since other snakes are a King Snake’s favorite food, she must have assumed my finger was a snake and proceeded to swallow it. This wasn’t a problem. I couldn’t remove her without hurting her but I knew she would have to give up at some point, which she did. As you may have noticed, any time you are in an awkward situation, a crowd appears. For instance, if your car breaks down on a lonely road late at night you will not see another person for hours unless you take a “pit stop” on the side of the road. As soon as you are “exposed” you will think your lonely road has become a freeway bypass. This was not an exception. Seven different cars showed up for different reasons. Some are still talking about watching me wait for Marie to spit out my finger, like it was weird or strange or something. Some people find excitement in the blandest things. After an hour, or two, or three, Marie finally gave up on eating the digit.

Back to the story, Marie escaped and fortunately or Un, Management saw her crawling into a hole in the wall. This was a mixed blessing; I had just built the wall and sheet rocked it so I knew Marie couldn’t get outside. However, Management could and vacated the premises. Apparently, the godmother was also present, but as I said it was such an insignificant incident, I don’t remember.

I was required to remove sheetrock and Marie had discovered she could move down the wall through holes drilled for wiring. I ended up removing most of the wall before finding her.

I still don’t understand why my bride gets in such a hurry to finish projects when she turns around and makes me tear it all out later for no reason.

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