GARDEN SNAKES CAN BE DANGEROUS...

This arrived in my e-mail the other day and I just couldn’t resist it. There are many metaphors describing the way Murphy’s Law works in my life. This is with thanks to its originator.

Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why.

A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a many potted plants. During a recent cold spell the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.

It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.

She let out a very loud scream.

The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.

He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.

His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.

About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbour who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa.

The neighbour man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbour's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now, the police had arrived.

They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake!

The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbour and his sobbing wife.

Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, neighbours saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).

Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.

A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.

And that's when he shot her.

Ghosts in the Attic?

“What was that?” Denis exclaimed – “Where’s Dog?”.

“Dog’s here, by my feet; what’s the problem?”

“Didn’t you hear that thud?”

No, I hadn’t heard the thud and since Denis didn’t seem overly concerned about it, the silent evening continued with us both working away at our respective tasks.

A couple of hours later, there was another thud and I heard it this time. Odd, I thought to myself, the house does creak and groan from time to time, but I’ve never heard a thud before now. I was just trying to work all this out when there was yet another thud. Not a very loud one, but it definitely sounded as though someone or some object was coming into contact with the wall. The trouble is, there is no wall in the attic, except the outside wall and it sounded like an inside thud – not an outside thud.

We experienced this noise later in the evening in what appeared to be in the attic above our bedroom, but we still couldn’t figure out what it was. I can’t say that we were frightened or particularly worried about it, but it was an uncomfortable feeling.

Obviously this thump, once started, didn’t feel like stopping and we heard it the following day and again in the evening, whereupon I decreed that steps must be taken to investigate. Denis could not go up into the attic, and I would not go up into the attic so, working on the assumption that it must be some sort of large rodents, or, heaven forbid, even a coon, we called our friendly pest control expert the following morning.

Dave arrived just before noon and I was anxious to find out if he had been called out for this kind of thing before.

“Oh, lots of times,” said Dave, with a large grin spreading from one ear to the other, “but most of the time it’s just ghosts in the attic!” Knowing what my reaction might be to that last sentence, he hurriedly climbed the ladder to the attic.

He found nothing, certainly no coon; after he had climbed down the ladder, he heard the thud which prompted him to revise his opinion of ghosts in the attic and he decided to take a tour around the house outside.

Five minutes later, he reported back with his findings. We were all agog thinking that our little mystery might soon be solved.

“It could well be something to do with the attachment of the main electric cable to the house” Dave, the pest control expert explained. This cable swung across the road and up to the side of the house where it is attached to some kind of fixture on the outside wall of the house. “Phone Hydro,” he suggested.

The following day, having heard more “thumps in the night” I called Hydro. The operator at the other end of the phone explained that the gadget which attaches the cable to the house is called an Emily knob and as such was not Hydro’s responsibility. Ah, I thought, we are running true to form – pass the buck. The operator suggested I call an electrician.

Friday morning dawned, with more thuds during the night and I was on the phone to the electrician. Yes, they would come out some time today.

Two electricians turned up at 1:30 p.m., and did a thorough investigation, absolutely intrigued with their unusual problem at this residence. Apparently the Emily knob was sound and secure, as was the electric cable attached to it. Since the cable entered the house below the attic line, the electricians ruled out the Emily knob or the cable being the cause of our small problem. Why were Dave and ourselves not able to figure that out before I called Hydro, because I guess were are not electricians.

While standing at the bottom of the ladder to the attic, both electricians heard the thud, and raced back up again to see what they could see which was absolutely nothing. Finally, they left, completely perplexed, as was I. What next, I wondered.

What came next was a cessation of thumps, and a huge bill from the electricians.

I must report that we didn’t hear another sound for about three weeks; but the thudding started again on Tuesday.

Stay tuned for an update on Ghosts in the Attic?

© Susan Lancaster