Finally, I have something new to write about.
As most of you know, I work from home. As a result, I see a lot of Wendy's sister, Heidi, and my little nieces, Elle, Riley, and Kora (the explorer). Today was like many others. I had just wrapped up my third conference call of the day and Wendy had just returned from taking Jared to preschool. Elle, Riley, and Rowan were out in our backyard playing.
Heidi and Wendy were in the dining room discussing the topics of the week -- redecorating our home and Heidi's house hunting (okay, okay, Heidi's home hunting has been a topic for the past four months). I overheard them talking about the schools in an area that held Heidi's interest, so I brought them a map with the school boundaries outlined. We spent about 5 minutes talking about the schools when we heard a scream.
It was little Riley, and it wasn't her normal screaming/crying. She was obviously in some distress. Heidi jumped up and sprinted for the back door. While running just behind Heidi, Wendy yelled, "Maybe it's ants." Texas has some mean fire ants. Wendy stopped at the kitchen sink to grab a bunch of paper towels in anticipation of the ants. As Riley's screams didn't lessen in intensity, I got a little worried and ran behind Wendy. Wendy opened the back door, and when she did, I heard something I have NEVER heard before. It seriously gave me chills. When I heard it, the first thing that came to mind was, "Oh no, Riley is dead, or being mauled by a grizzly."
Wendy slammed the door shut and her face was white. She looked at me and said, "It's a snake!" So now, as a result of Heidi's "Bate's Motel" scream and Wendy's door slam, I am picturing Riley's body halfway down the throat of an anaconda.
I asked Wendy how big the snake was. She said, "It's huge, and don't open the door. IT IS RIGHT THERE AND IT WILL GET IN THE HOUSE IF YOU OPEN THE DOOR." I couldn't see it, so I decided to go through the garage and around the house.
I would now like to pause and remind you of the "Four Foot Hole" posting. I quote:
"While at Lowe's we found the shovel section. I can't believe how many different shovels they have. I was honed in on all the different options of shovels. I was in this man-trance when Wendy tried to distract me with a lame post hole digger. I then began to explain to her that anyone who knows anything about digging would NOT use a post hole digger for this project. I bought the shovel of my choice and took it home."
I spotted my trusty shovel on my way through the garage and rounded the house with shovel in hand. I saw Heidi's heart beating through a vein in her forehead. I asked her to point the way to the snake. With tears rolling down her panic-stricken face, she couldn't even speak. She just raised her trembling hand and forced a point. That's all I needed. I tasted the air and headed for the unfortunate reptile.
There it was, coiled up and ready to strike. I assessed the situation and wasn't too excited about smashing a snake with a shovel. I poked it a little, and it struck my shovel with the ferocity of a rabid ferret. By this time, Heidi, Wendy, and our neighbor Shelley, were all advising me in a panic. You would have thought that each one of them had received years of personal tutoring in Steve Irwin's "Poisonous Snake Handling" course. Either that, or they stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
I took my first swipe and about the time I made contact, all 3 women screamed. I look over, and there was Heidi holding Riley and Wendy holding Rowan. Elle was standing by the door, probably wondering why the adults were behaving so silly.
I missed the head, but put a nice gash in the side of the snake. It was REALLY mad after that. It started striking at the hose, it was striking in the air, and even at itself. Then, it made a "slither" for it. It was heading straight for Shelley's yard. There was no way I was letting that happen, so I swept in back the other way and gave it two more nice cracks. The head shot did the trick. I scooped it up and set in on the lawn for all to see.
Afterwards, Heidi said when she came out to see why Riley was screaming, she saw the snake crawling over Riley's feet. So, she jumped over the snake, then asked Riley to run. Riley was frozen, and so was Heidi. Finally, Heidi mustered the courage to grab Riley. That's when Wendy opened the door, and went into her panic.
A little while later, Jared got home from school. Wanting to get a 5 year-old boy's perspective, I told him I had something to show him, covered his eyes, and guided him to the snake. We got right up to it and I removed my hands. The first words out of his mouth were, "Whoa, DAD! That is totally awesome! Can I hang it in my room?"
By the way, I should mention -- it would have been much more difficult to kill a snake with a post hole digger.
I have ever read. It is about a man and his son in a "post-apocalytic" type of world, a world void of almost every convenience we now have. Food is scarce and so are the people. Not only is it creatively written, it is perfectly framed. While descriptive as a whole, it is vague enough to allow the reader's imagination to kick in. Most of all, it is very real. The author (Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses) does not try to over-embellish the way most authors do these days. If you want to read picture perfect fiction, this is it. I highly recommend it.
