ANOTHER SNAKE!

Tonight, just as I was about to get ready for bed, I went out on the back porch to get something from the table where I've been working all day.  It was dark, but there was a flashlight on the counter outside the door.  I grabbed the flashlight, switched it on, and aimed it at the counter just in time to see a SNAKE slither over a basket full of craft supplies, heading toward the crack between the back  of the cabinet and the wall.

I leapt to the other side of the porch and started screaming for The Husband.  "COME HERE!  AND BRING A GUN!"

He came running out the back door.  "What?  What is it?"

 "SNAKE!  BIG snake!"

 "WHERE?"

 "On the - on the THING."

 "WHAT THING?" 

 I could not think of the word "cabinet."   I aimed the flashlight at it the counter near him.  "ON
THAT!"

He jumped back in the house.  "WHERE?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" 

 Mayham ensued.

"Turn on the ceiling fan light," The Husband said.  When I did, he grabbed the broom and started shoving stuff around on the countertop.  The snake was gone. 

A gone snake is about worse than a present snake, when you don't know where it went. 

I came in the house and put on my gardening boots.

We moved everything off the cabinet, shined the flashlight beam down the crack.  Didn't see the snake.  We opened the cabinet doors, didn't see the snake.  I started moving porch furniture so that we could pull all of the furniture away from the wall. 

Then, The Husband, who was still shining the light behind the cabinet, said, "I see his head."

A wave of relief washed over me at knowing where he was.  But then I asked, "NOW what?" 

There were three BB guns and a bottle of BBs on top of another cabinet farther down the wall.  The Husband started shaking BB guns to see if one was loaded.  When one rattled, he brought it around to the end of the cabinet.  "Hold the flashlight!" he said.  He cocked the BB gun, and went to shooting down the crack.  BBs were ricocheting all over the place. 

 "YOU CAN'T KILL A SNAKE WITH A BB GUN!" I yelled, holding the light, dodging bullets.

 "YES, YOU CAN!" he said, and kept on shooting.

He made the snake mad enough that it eventually came out to escape the onslaught.  He kept shooting.  He emptied all the BB guns, reloaded, kept shooting.  He must have put 50 BBs in that snake's head, and 150 more in its body. 

Finally, we deemed it no longer fit for combat. 

I went to the shed for a hoe and a rake, and we dragged the thing out and put it in a sack and flung it down the hill.  Washed the blood off the porch.  Moved the furniture back into place. 

As we came inside, I said to The Husband, "THAT's a way to wind down a peaceful evening, huh?"

He said, "For real.  I need another shower.  My *ss feels kinda swampy now."

While I piddled around in the kitchen, he looked up snakes on the internet.  He thinks it was a rat snake.  I was sure it was a copperhead, or maybe a python.  ;)  Sucker was at least 3 feet long.

It'll take me 2 hours to calm down enough to sleep.

And far longer than that to sit comfortably on the back porch with my feet under the table.

UPDATE:  The snake must have landed belly-up, for it began to rain about 30 minutes after The Husband pitched it over the hill.  He may have to go find it, for we've had enough rain for a while.