Snakes don’t care about statistics
I hate snakes. Not just dislike, but pure, undistilled hatred. I don’t like them in books. I don’t like them in zoos. I don’t like them in parks. I don’t like them in . . . well, you get the idea.
One evening after the kids went to bed I decided to clean the downstairs floors. I went to the closet under the stairs and grabbed the broom and mop, and realized halfway back to the kitchen that I forgot the Swiffer cloth for the mop, so I headed back. Our cat was pawing at the door, trying to get it open. I opened the door and something slithered.
Instinct kicked in with a shot of pure adrenaline. I backed up in a series of high-stepping leaps, hollering, “Ma-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-tttttt!!!” (The visual I offer is this: think bee-stung giraffe crossed with a wild-eyed colt, emitting a bellow. It was not graceful, nor was it pretty.) Matt came running from the kitchen, where he was drying dishes, with a wooden spoon still in his hand.
I could barely speak, but I pointed to the closet from the recesses of the laundry room and managed, “Snake!”
Matt opened the door carefully and peeked. “Yep, sure is a snake,” he said, in a tone that said he thought I might have imagined it, but lo and behold, there was one! (Later he denied being skeptical. “I thought it might be one,” my husband admitted, “from the sound of your voice.” Really? He got “honey, there is a snake in the downstairs closet” from “Ma-a-a-a-a-a-tttt!”? Wow.)
Around this time it occurred to me that my back was to the garage and I couldn’t see under the washer and dryer. An urgent thought crossed my mind: How had the snake gotten in? Every door in our house is raised up by at least one step. There is no chance our cat caught it, because while we love Misha dearly, she is not a huntress. She would not survive in the wild; she can’t even catch dead leaves.
I took the same high-stepping gazelle-like leaps across the floor (“Gaaaaaahhhhh!”) to land in the center of the living room where I could survey the expanse of carpet around me for advancing serpents while shaking and whimpering involuntarily.
It took awhile for the snake to get captured, since it could hide behind boxes and such, and Matt was being cautious, not knowing if it was a poisonous snake or not.
Finally there was a triumphant noise and the sound of a paper bag closing.
“I’ve got it, and I’m taking it out,” Matt called to me.
“I’ll take it far away,” he clarified.
“I’ll drive it far away,” he amended.
And he did. When he returned, I was still shaken. This was absolutely not okay. How had a snake come in my house?
“Well, let’s look at it logically,” my husband tried. “Statistically, it was more likely to be non-poisonous than poisonous.”
I informed him in terse, non-ladylike language that the blankety-blank statistics didn’t allow for a blankety-blank snake to be in my blankety-blank closet, so I wasn’t holding much with blankety-blank statistics, thank you. A snake in my house is illogical; why did he insist on applying logic to this?
“What would you have done if I hadn’t have been home,” Matt wanted to know.
I blinked in surprise. “Call 9-1-1,” I said.
Matt was aghast. “For a snake?”
I’ve seen the show, I told him. They come and get snakes out. They come with sirens and uniforms and guns.
Matt tried to reason with me again, by pointing out that was for 14-foot-long anacondas or boas, not corn snakes, like he guessed this snake was. I maintained my firm stand. I wasn’t going to get close enough to tell you what kind of snake it was, or whether it was poisonous, I told him.
Let me tell you about logic. For six months I couldn’t use the “snake closet,” as I called it. Sure, one time was a fluke, but guess what? Statistically, even if I never go in that closet again, there still are too many snakes in there for me.
