May 24, 2006

• Rattlesnake!!!

  Michael at school.  I am frantically trying to get all my stuff finished at school, giving finals, cleaning out my room since I will be teaching a completely new area of study next year.  (Surely there are not many of us who are certified to teach English, history, math, and science (and ESL).  It makes one very employable, but it also causes one to bounce around quite often to cover those hard-to-fill positions.  [My current situation is still not bad.  My hardest year was teaching 8 preparations in a 6 period day along with being UIL coordinator, coaching UIL number sense, calculator, mathematics, science, editorial writing, news writing, feature writing, and headline writing, directing Talented and Gifted, and being senior sponsor.  I get tired just remembering it -- and I know Lorena remembers it!!!]

  
  

  I have been a faculty representative (i.e. guard) at graduation for the  past three years, so this year I was reveling in the fact that I would not have to do that again.  Then Karen Koonsman retired.  Drat darn it!!!  I will miss K².  She is frantically working to get her room cleaned out, and she lives about an hour north of here, so I volunteered to take her assigned graduation guard duty for her.  Today, I got to sit in a glorious meeting on how to do our assignment without harming any animals, and I received Karen's robe and collar.  (Oh, wait; that thing is called a hood, isn't it?  The animals wear the collars...)  I figure her robe will strike me just below my cute little chubby behind-cheeks, so that should be interesting.   I made a comment about perhaps not wearing anything under my robe -- and half the faculty threatened to go home sick...

  
  

  A short time later, I received a breathless call from Lorraine.  (Actually, there was a LOT of breathing.  In fact, that was almost all I could hear for awhile.)  She, Stephi, and Mrs_Tiggy_Winkle were doing some cleaning and rearranging in the garage when she opened a box containing some Harry Potter games, some other odds and ends, and a really cute toy snake.  Just about the time she saw the toy snake, it started rattling.  [As she tells it, "I saw the snake and thought, 'Wow!  What a neat little toy snake!  But before I could reach down and pick it up, it started rattling.  I just let the lid on the box fall back down, yelled, 'Snake!' and ran.  I called the police and told them, and they are sending an officer, but I just wanted you to know that we found a rattlesnake in the garage."  That is a call that will get your adrenalin going!]   (Michigan Marly was impressed with the way that Rainey handled the situation, but she claims that she outran Lorraine as they exited the garage...)

  
  

  I have never seen a rattler here in town, but that is certainly not to say that they are not here.  I know there will be rattlers on the outskirts of town, at least.  Anyway, I briefly told everyone at school why I was running away on my way out to the car and home.  The animal control officer was already at our house with the boxed prize sitting out under the carport.  I was instantly reminded of opening a big Cracker Jacks box with nothing edible inside but a toxic reptile that doubled as the prize...  I opened the box, he pulled out a couple of Harry Potter games with his snake tongs -- and we discovered a lovely, TERRIFIED, two-foot-long chicken snake.  Its vibrating tail on the side of the box made a most impressive rattler-like buzz.

  
  

  I tried to get the officer to let me keep the snake to show Lya, but he explained that since he had caught it, he would be liable legally if anyone got hurt by it, so he was going to release it outside of town.  I got a cloth and wiped the chicken snake urine off the box as the ladies present told me how scared THEY had been.  (None of them had to clean up, so I know that they were nowhere near as scared as that snake was.)

  
  

  Lorraine, Stephi, and Marly all had to tell me, very excitedly and animatedly,  how the serpentine story had unwound.  Stephi pointed out the irony of the snake being in a box with Harry Potter books -- and I was booed when I pointed out that it was especially ironic that it was "slitherin'" [Slytherin] around in the box.  [I did not dare, then, tell them that I had licked a couple of horse-barns-full of envelopes at school -- so perhaps I could have spoken "Parcel-tongue" to the snake.  I held my tongue, though, because I was obviously in a hostile crowd that would not appreciate my incredible wit...]

  
  

  Rainey then informed me of how many chicken snakes they have shot at Dublin this last week.  I chewed (figuratively) on her for a moment for shooting snakes, but she said the snakes were wreaking havoc on their egg and chick population.  I had precipitated this discussion by saying that I wish I had kept the snake in the garden, so I pointed out to Lorraine that I had no eggs or chicks to worry about.  Stephi then chided me by reminding me about living with several CHICKS about whom I should worry because they WOULD BE GONE IF SNAKES WERE ABOUT...

  
  

  Of course, I had to correct her.  As best I could tell, judging by what I had seen at the scene, I live with several BIG CHICKENS!!!  (Pwa-a-a-wk!  Pok pok pok...)

  
  

  Rainey then started telling us about the skunks, possums, coons, and snakes that she has shot under Jeremy's guidance.  (Remember that that is my little debutante who asked me how to get blood off her high heels after she dressed out a deer in prom gear.  (SHE was in the prom gear.  The dear was NOT wearing a prom dress although, logically, I guess Rainey UNDRESSED the deer...  Sometimes, the language simply does not suffice...)

  
  

  This caused the conversation to move on to the 12 foot alligator that someone poached in Lake Lewisville this last weekend -- and the fact that Lya is afraid of alligators being in Lake Tyler (which I am sure there are.)  Then Stephanie started telling Miss Marly and Alisha about fifty foot gars that will eat you up, and Rainey told us about a huge, ferocious, man-eating salamander that had been discovered in China.  The poor Michiganders were looking a mite out-of-sorts by now.  (Marly discovered yesterday why fire ants are called fire ants -- and she is ready to believe the grossest exaggerations.  And most of our exaggerations truly are gross.)

  
  

  Lorena would love it.  She always thought the girls and me a bit crazy when we would catch snakes and play with them...  I am not sure what happened to my little tomboys.  Somehow, they metamorphosed into young Thomas ladies...  Now, of THAT, Lorena would be proud...  I have no idea where I went wrong!!!!  I only know that Lorena did all right...

  • 7:44 pm
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