A Recap From My Trip Home:

PART THREE: nightmare in the basement

Every few days I think back to the encounter and crack up laughing, but I assure you, at the time I was the most frightened I've ever been.

I'd been having a lovely time at home in Kentucky visiting family and friends. After attending a wedding, Mike had to go back to Florida early for work that Sunday morning and Dad had left to play golf. So Mom and I planned to go into town to look for some things for Abby Kate. After lounging around playing with William for most of the morning, Mom jumped into the shower and I went downstairs to get dressed. My parents' dog, Taylor, (a black Huskie/Chow mix) was barking outside all morning. We had paid no attention to it, but when I got downstairs I could hear he was barking right outside the window on the lower patio by the guest bedroom I was sleeping in.

The blinds were closed and I thought maybe Taylor somehow saw my movement through the cracks, so I lifted up one of the wooden slats to peek at him. Sure enough, there he was barking at the window. I smiled at him and reached for the blind cords to draw up the blinds so he could see me better. I pulled them up fast trying to surprise him. Instead, I got the shock of my life when I saw what was on the other side of the window. Does anyone know what my worst fear in the world is? I know a lot of you do. There it was, a five-foot long, coiled-up, black snake on the window sill. Did I mention the five feet?! I kid you not. I'm not exaggerating. It was huge. And I am seriously, SERIOUSLY phobic. Its head was raised out of the coils just inches from me, staring at me through the window!

I about had a heart attack. I'm surprised that Abby Kate wasn't born four months premature right there in the basement. I jumped back, rammed my back into the bedpost, shrieking in terror. I ran out of the room and up the stairs, still screaming in a pitch I didn't know I had. I fell up the stairs before getting to the living room where I curled up on the floor crying and screaming. Brian and Carrie came running out with the baby. They kept asking "what's wrong," but I couldn't get it out. (I go into these weird convulsions when I encounter a snake - this one being by far the worst encounter.) Mom heard my screams and slipped getting out of the shower before running out in her towel, a trail of water behind her. She asked Brian, "what's the matter with her?!" I finally got out the word 'snake' and pointed to the stairs. At this point, they all thought there was a snake in the house. After I explained through my tears, Mom grabbed a hoe (still in her towel-dress) and ran out the back door! She's crazy, I know. She couldn't get a good angle to kill it, so Brian grabbed a can of Raid to at least blind it. He sprayed it through the window screen. Then it slithered off toward the door. We thought it might get into the garage.

Carrie and I ran to the neighbor's house and good old Steve came to our rescue. We'd have wanted the snake to be dead and gone, but he didn't want to kill it. I'm thinking, "are you insane?! Kill it!!!" Steve used the end of a garden tool to trap the beast against the brick wall. Then he used his hands - YES, HIS HANDS - to pick it up. Brian looked on from the safety of one of the lawn chairs. Steve grabbed the head in one hand and the tail in the other. He walked with it way back in the woods, his arms were stretched wide. The snake was still swayed in the middle. It was so long.

After it was out of site, I had Brian move all my luggage to the upstairs bedroom. I refused to go back in that room for the rest of the time I was home. Finding that disgusting thing was horrific. I am scarred for life. Brian, Carrie and Mom told me later that they thought someone had died by the way I was screaming. If I wasn't so scared, I'd have taken a picture for proof of the snake's enormity, but (1) I couldn't look at it after the initial finding and (2) I could never visit my own blog again if there was a picture of a snake on it. I'm shivering just thinking about having a picture of it. It gives me the creeps to know it's still out there in the woods. Maybe the Raid eventually killed it. Blech!!!