What's that in the Closet?

Well do I have a story for you!

We have an old house and it is built on a stone foundation with just crawlspaces under much of the house. As a result, we tend to get mice. Field mice. Little ones. Not rats. Not great big mice. Just tiny little wee field mice. Because of that, we usually leave a mouse trap set in one of the places they tend to get in and where the dog can't get into the trap, which is in our downstairs closet. In the den. About 6 feet from my computer desk. Where I was sitting this afternoon, diligently finishing off John's books and feeling very proud of myself. All of sudden ..... thump, bang, crash! I thought Mags was doing something strange, but no; she was focused on the closet. Really focused! She charged it and sniffed at it and went crazy! So I said to myself " Ahah! Another one bites the dust!" and promptly went out to meet my friend for dinner. Because that's what I do. I don't empty mouse traps. I don't do dead animals. I was a nurse my whole adult life and dealt with dead people, but I don't do dead animals! So off I go leaving this mouse trap for John to deal with when he gets home from his meeting.

My friend and I had a lovely dinner and talked and laughed and really enjoyed ourselves. I came home a few hours later, having completely forgotten about the mouse trap. That's an age thing I think. Or maybe just my way of avoiding unpleasant things and situations.

John arrived home a little bit later and found the note I left him, saying that I think there is something dead in the closet. So he went to investigate whilst I held Mags out of the way. Well. He opened the door, gasped, cursed, slammed the door shut and said, " I think it is a *&%$@!*ing snake!" So he got a flashlight and looked in again, confirmed that it was indeed a snake and slammed the door shut again. It was at this point I grabbed Maggie and headed upstairs! Someone had to keep her out of the way, for heaven's sake! She would be totally in the middle of trying to help getting it out of the house!

Now, I must confess, that I felt terrible leaving John to cope with this all by himself. Especially knowing how much he HATES snakes. But as I said before, I don't do dead animals and particularly dead SNAKES! Next thing I hear him out in the barn getting a shovel of some sort to pick the whole thing, snake and trap. Eweh! Ick! A couple of minutes later he is back in the house, minus the snake. Which I must add, was still alive! Eweh again! It was a garter snake and slithered off into the woods when John opened the trap. Apparently they are too skinny to die in a trap, but long enough to get caught in one! Ick! Skin crawling! Eweh!

So John is definitely the Man of the Year at our house today!