That Darn Rubber Snake
I married a practical joker. It is not a primary trait, but it lies in wait. I married him even after he put a giant rubber tarantula on the toilet while I was asleep. Since I am merely a few years away from needing my own seeing eye dog, you can imagine my horror in the middle of the night! A giant arachnid in the glow of the nightlight, and me with my 20/2000 vision. It wasn’t pretty. Or quiet.
On our recent camping trip, he purchased a rubber snake to mess with me for the kids.
“Hey sweetie, can you go grab me the baby’s blanket?”
He failed to see that I was on autopilot. People with monotonous jobs know what I mean. You are functioning, doing what needs to be done, but your mind is probably on the beach sipping a margarita. Since I was preparing dinner, I was on autopilot, and completely missed the snake coiled next to the blanket.
He got a big laugh out of me not seeing the snake, but I may as well have said “Game on!” to him.
That snake popped up everywhere. He and the boys seemed to have a competition going as to who could make me holler the loudest. I began to feel like that poor woman on the funny home videos who kept getting scared by her kid in the Halloween mask.
You see, I really am afraid of snakes. They just do not MOVE right. Have you ever seen one swim? Yikes! Not to mention I grew up in Texas, where a snake can kill you. One of my earliest memories is of a snake in our yard. Follow that up with the summer my Granny had me move her wood pile. She needed it moved closer to her house since she was getting older.
I did as I was told, and eventually ran across a snake. Sure, a little garter snake, but a snake nonetheless. There was screaming.
“Just kill it with the hoe!” she told me, handing me my weapon.
Ok, that seemed a bit gross. And violent. Then again, I did see her chop off a chicken’s head when I was young. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Until I realized that I was going to keep running into the same darn snake as I moved down the pile. I began hacking away at whatever I could catch, just to minimize the fear. Imagine moving each log, waiting to see that slinky body slither even further into the depths of the woodpile. No thank you!
Anyway, I would go to the cooler to grab a pop (ok, beer) and there was the snake, red tongue poking through its fangs, and I would scream. Then with as much righteous indignation I could muster, I would shout “that is NOT funny!”
But it was funny. I knew we had a rubber snake on the premises. I knew they were playing a joke on me. It just did not matter to my instincts. I was hollering before the commonsense part of my brain could say “duh! It’s not real!” That doesn’t mean I won’t get my revenge.
I am sure my family would tell you that I deserved it. There was the year I kept putting generic shampoo into my husband’s Pantene bottle because he swore it was his favorite. The time I made a carrot cake for the kids, heavy on the carrots and pureed pineapple. Maybe they even realized the one night they scarfed down my spaghetti, not only did it have meat in the sauce, I had thrown in some baby food carrots for good measure. The month of cheap toilet paper because I had a coupon.
No matter. I will get payback! And if they find their rubber snake hacked to bits by a garden implement, well, that’s what you get!
Current Mood:
Embarrased
LOL Great story and you are out numbered with all those boys and it’s only going to get worse LOL but one day you will sit back and laugh at it all when the kids are all grown up..And oh by the way the kitty is soooooooo cute
You know how boys affectionately punch young girls in the arm when they love them? Rubber snake = love. That is apparent… as is carrots in spaghetti. Just sayin’.
Very insightful!