Monday, August 07, 2006

Snakes (almost) in my bra!

My expensive landscaping is dying. While other parts of the country alternately bake and drown, we are just baking. So today I came home at lunch and turned the hose on my sad dying trees while I ate lunch (shhh, don't tell the water police). And as I left to go back to the office, I reached down behind the bush to the faucet. And leaned directly into a 3 ft. black racer. You know how you look past something to see the thing you are reaching for, and then become aware that something else is right nearby? I'm leaning, I'm reaching, my chest is almost in the bush, and I became aware of something black on top of the bush. I leaned back just as the head of the snake was reaching for the v of my shirt. I suspect that in his little snake brain, he looked inside my shirt and thought it looked like a place to get out of the hot sun. I stepped back and he kept coming toward me. Eventually he realized that I wasn't going to cooperate and stopped. I'm not afraid of snakes, at least not as long as I know what kind they are, so I thought it was hilarious. He slithered down inside the bush, I went back to the office. I'll look carefully when I reach behind that bush in the future.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:04 PM

    I like to think that I don't freak out very easily -- but a 3 foot snake heading for my cleavage? You'd hear me hollering blocks away!

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  2. My first thought was to be calm to keep the snake calm, black racers are nervous by nature and I didn't really want to go to the ER for a snakebite on my boob. So I just stepped back a bit, very casually. If I didn't identify the type of snake immediately I'd have been way more freaked out, but these guys are harmless - except for that nervous "strike because I'm freaked out" tendency.

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  3. OMG--you're seriously freaking me out! I nearly grabbed a rattlesnake once when I was a kid because I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Thank goodness he was asleep, or I'd probably have been bitten. So now I'm having flashbacks--thanks soo much!

    We're burning in Oklahoma, too. Saturday morning at 9 am, my direct-morning sun walkway in front of my department was off the chart at at least 125 degrees. I was afraid my thermometer was gonna bust--it was reading as high as it could go.

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  4. Wow, snakes in the bra is MUCH more exciting that snakes on a plane. Maybe you should knit the snakes some sunscreens. Then they wouldn't be tempted by shady cleavage.

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  5. Anonymous9:32 AM

    wish I had enough cleavage to cast shade. :(

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  6. Wow - I would've screamed and run away. And then apparantly gone to the ER for a snake bite on my boob.

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  7. It wasn't the shade of my cleavage, it was the gap in the neckline of my shirt that must have caught his eye - it probably looked like the opening to a shady spot. The girls aren't big enough to cast that kind of shade!

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