Oh Snap! It's a snake, spider, bug!

By now, you might be aware that I'm a true city girl who married a country boy. Yes, I grew up for 4 or 5 years in the country (middle of nowhere), but I was pretty young. My teen years were spent in the big city and those were the years when I developed my awesome style and preferences. OK, I don't have style, but I developed a preference for the city.

When I started dating Mr. Wonderful, I had to get reacquainted with things that live in the country like spiders, bugs, critters and snakes. Yes, those things live in the city, too but you don't see them as much as you do out in the country.Now,  I'm not a total chicken. If I see a spider, I calmly move at least 6 feet away from it. I don't scream. I do have a pretty strong aversion to daddy long leg spiders though. At our place in the country we have a large garage/work area that we call the shop. I love to hang out there and goof around. In the winter, we light the pot bellied stove and it gets warm enough to walk around in short sleeves even if it's 20 degrees outside. Like any living being, when it's cold outside, animals and bugs prefer to be where it's warm. So during the winter there are lots of daddy long legs roaming around the shop. That's all well and good, but I am so creeped out by this type of spider I have to sweep the floors to make sure there aren't any long legs crawling around. I also check under the table and chairs, around the yard tools, around the stove, under the car, on the walls, behind boxes...you get the idea.
I know that that type of spider has such a tiny mouth, there's no way I'll get bitten but the legs are so creepy! It gives me the hiney cringes just thinking about them. UGH!!! yuck   ewwwwwwwww

One evening Mr. Wonderful and I were piddlin' around in the shop and I had a fairly tall ladder set up because I wanted to look at something up high. I happened to look on the floor and saw a rogue long legs creeping across the floor in it's creepy, bouncy way. First my stomach took a big lurch, then I made it up to the top of that ladder in about .5 seconds. I stayed up there until Manchild got rid of it. And even then, I didn't want to come down. But I did because I'm a brave citified country girl now.

 I prefer to look at critters from a fair distance because they might be bloodthirsty and I don't want to tease them. I'm only thinking of their needs. Snakes are wonderful for removing small rodents. I know that they are keeping the mice from invading our little house in the woods but I don't want to see them. Not even from 25 miles away. When I see a snake slithering along, I almost have the same physical reaction as I do to worms. I feel the contents of my stomach rising up my esophagus at lightning speed, but the need to run at least a 40 yard dash in record time competes with that. I usually run away while covering my mouth in an attempt to keep from throwing up. It's a funny sight I guess.

Mornings at our little love nest are very peaceful. The birds are flitting about, bees are slowly buzzing around the flowers, the sun is slowly rising... It's just lovely. I like to go out on the front porch and sit in the rocking chair and watch the world wake up while sipping my coffee. One morning I was going to do just that but when I opened the front door the unexpected happened. Right next to the front door was the largest, most malevolent killer snake I've ever seen. It had to be at least 65 feet long with dripping fangs 5 inches long. It's eyes spit blood and it growled at me! I was so scared, all I could do was squeak out half of the word "help." Thankfully I found my voice and according to my man, I sounded like my arms were being ripped off or something. Besides saying his name 285 times I was also shouting out a whole litany of "eewwwwwwww"s, and "holeycrikeyit'sakillersnake" and "holy mother of a sum' bitch" (sorry for the foul language, but I wanted you to get a real feeling for how I was shouting). I'm not sure what all I said because the whole affair was so traumatic, I think I was trying to live in a parallel universe or something.

Do you know what Mr. Wonderful did????? First, he started laughing at me. Then he walked right over and picked up that anaconda! He calmly carried it over to the woods and let it go. I was still in the throes of an epileptic fit and he was walking around carrying a killer snake! My man was obviously out of his ever lovin' mind. He tried to tell me that it was just a rat snake or a chicken snake or a city girl eating snake...I don't know; I just know that my man picked up a snake and took it for a walk. How crazy is that? And he says people from the city are crazy. Sheesh!

I promise that no matter how long I spend time in the country, I will not - no way, no how, pick up a snake. And if I see another one on the the front porch, I'm going to scream and cry and pull my hair and throw my cup of coffee at it. And then I'll thank it for keeping the mice away. From 25 feet away of course.