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The Continuing Chronicles of the FNG(irl): Snake in The Grass.
I don't consider myself a particularly "girly" girl.....If you see me at a party, nine times out of ten, you'll find me with the guys, shooting pool or playing darts, and telling stories and jokes. You will NOT find me in the kitchen with the catty chicks, who seem to derive some form of pleasure from ripping other women to shreds behind their backs. I've never understood how that's supposed to be "fun".
I don't particularly like to shop, unless I need something specific. If I need something specific, I want to know where in the store it is, and what the fastest path to the register and the exit is.
I can go from shower to door in under 15 minutes and I don't need 20 second opinions on which shoes to wear or if my outfit makes my butt look big. I like playing a pickup game of Nerf football just as much as I like going out for a nice meal.
All that said, there is one area where I am over-the-top girly, and that has to do with anything that crawls on eight legs or has to slither to move around. You've already read my adventures with arachnids in one of my previous posts...tonight's soliloquy revolves around the slithery side of life.
Our "drill night" this past week wasn't a drill per se, it was really a work detail (which I have no problem with, I realize it can't all be fun and games and playing on the truck). With Memorial Weekend looming, plus our involvement in a parade earlier today, we needed to get the trucks washed and waxed, the bay floor needed to be completely devoid of anything resting on it, as the floors are being re-done this week, and the whole house, in general, needed to be spiffed up. We'll play host to 90% of our village next weekend after our parade, so a little pride was at stake.
Due to a lack of interest in signing up for landscaping from the other members, I volunteered myself. Three hours of weeding and shoveling mulch later (and the screaming back-ache to prove it the following day) and we moved on to "detailing" the flower beds.
In my left hand? Hedge Trimmers to attack the more resistant roots fouling up the beds (some of those mothers were enormous). In my right hand a hand-rake.....
Envision this with me if you will........on my knees underneath some sort of shrub (I have no idea what, my thumbs are not green...one shrub looks pretty much like another to me)....leaning on my elbows to get better leverage while I hack, clip and tug at a particularly stubborn root. It finally comes free, I toss it aside and start to smooth out the dirt waaaaaay under the shrub, and then I see ANOTHER root. "What the hell?" I say to myself..."It's like they're breeding in the dark".
I reach forward with the hedge trimmers, planning on snipping it in half....which is when it started to serpentine right toward me.
Yes. It was a snake. No, I don't know what kind it was (probably a garter but that's just semantics when it's moving toward you), and I could tell you that it was HUGE, but that might have just been perspective. What I DO know is that I somehow managed to get from almost a completely prone position onto my feet in one move, and almost impaled one of the older guys on the department with the hedge trimmers when I spun around on my feet and ran, screaming....like a girl.
The two older guys I was working with were doing that completely soundless laugh...you know the kind where your mouth is hanging open, bent over with your hands on your knees, tears are streaming down your face but you don't make a sound because you're laughing too hard? Yeah, like that.
As Bill said..."I don't even think dogs could hear that scream it was so high-pitched".
I'm so glad I can provide them with their weekly dose of amusement fodder.
I don't particularly like to shop, unless I need something specific. If I need something specific, I want to know where in the store it is, and what the fastest path to the register and the exit is.
I can go from shower to door in under 15 minutes and I don't need 20 second opinions on which shoes to wear or if my outfit makes my butt look big. I like playing a pickup game of Nerf football just as much as I like going out for a nice meal.
All that said, there is one area where I am over-the-top girly, and that has to do with anything that crawls on eight legs or has to slither to move around. You've already read my adventures with arachnids in one of my previous posts...tonight's soliloquy revolves around the slithery side of life.
Our "drill night" this past week wasn't a drill per se, it was really a work detail (which I have no problem with, I realize it can't all be fun and games and playing on the truck). With Memorial Weekend looming, plus our involvement in a parade earlier today, we needed to get the trucks washed and waxed, the bay floor needed to be completely devoid of anything resting on it, as the floors are being re-done this week, and the whole house, in general, needed to be spiffed up. We'll play host to 90% of our village next weekend after our parade, so a little pride was at stake.
Due to a lack of interest in signing up for landscaping from the other members, I volunteered myself. Three hours of weeding and shoveling mulch later (and the screaming back-ache to prove it the following day) and we moved on to "detailing" the flower beds.
In my left hand? Hedge Trimmers to attack the more resistant roots fouling up the beds (some of those mothers were enormous). In my right hand a hand-rake.....
Envision this with me if you will........on my knees underneath some sort of shrub (I have no idea what, my thumbs are not green...one shrub looks pretty much like another to me)....leaning on my elbows to get better leverage while I hack, clip and tug at a particularly stubborn root. It finally comes free, I toss it aside and start to smooth out the dirt waaaaaay under the shrub, and then I see ANOTHER root. "What the hell?" I say to myself..."It's like they're breeding in the dark".
I reach forward with the hedge trimmers, planning on snipping it in half....which is when it started to serpentine right toward me.
Yes. It was a snake. No, I don't know what kind it was (probably a garter but that's just semantics when it's moving toward you), and I could tell you that it was HUGE, but that might have just been perspective. What I DO know is that I somehow managed to get from almost a completely prone position onto my feet in one move, and almost impaled one of the older guys on the department with the hedge trimmers when I spun around on my feet and ran, screaming....like a girl.
The two older guys I was working with were doing that completely soundless laugh...you know the kind where your mouth is hanging open, bent over with your hands on your knees, tears are streaming down your face but you don't make a sound because you're laughing too hard? Yeah, like that.
As Bill said..."I don't even think dogs could hear that scream it was so high-pitched".
I'm so glad I can provide them with their weekly dose of amusement fodder.
Add a Comment
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Comment by LadyChaplain on May 19, 2008 at 10:04am
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Mel, we are far too much alike for our own good sometimes. I am going to leave it at that. Although, there was one time when a baby garter snake was trying to challenge my dog... now THAT was funny. The snake had to be maybe 6 inches and about the width of a pencil... my dog on the other hand... a burley, obese Yorkie (although you'd NEVER believe he was) going about 18 pounds. I think you know who won that battle lol.
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Comment by Mary Ellen Shea on May 19, 2008 at 9:15am
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Comment by Charlotte Crawford on May 19, 2008 at 9:10am
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Sean, Is that thing yours? In a picture or a glass cage they are fine, I just don't like to be snuck up on by one of them.
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You know you are sooo not alone with being afraid of snakes. Put me in an inverted car to help extricate the patient, with charged lines pointing at you because of the fear of fire and I'm there. But put a snake in there and someone else will be going in. I aim my lawn mower at them if they are dumb enough to scare me while mowing. They make great fertilizer once mulched up :-)
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Comment by Kimberly A Bownas on May 19, 2008 at 6:50am
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That is great Dave, lol....
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Comment by Dave, NB 9 on May 19, 2008 at 6:48am
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Be afraid, be very very afraid!
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That gives me an idea? BRB
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Comment by Jim Seargent on May 18, 2008 at 10:35pm
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OK, it's time for a little "fessing up". I too am afraid of snakes! Yep, you can put me in just about any situation and I will keep my head, but give me a snake and I turn into a real fag. I have a little Rossi .22 snubby that I keep full of shot shells for when I have to work where I might come across a snake. Call me a girl, I don't care. If I meet a snake, it will almost always be a fatal event!
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lol Art....
That makes me feel a little less like an idiot, not by much, but some.
:)
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Comment by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on May 18, 2008 at 10:08pm
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Ah; a good snake story.
Mel; for what it's worth, I have heard grown MEN scream like little girls at the sight of a snake.
A few years ago, we were working a wreck on the interstate with another department. We were waiting for the coroner and we were down in the median just hangin' out, talking and trying to loosen up after a tough semi-tractor/trailer fire and this little, itty-bitty milksnake, no bigger than a dew worm came across my path. I picked him up and I yelled at the guy next to me to "catch". He instinctively held up his hand and I tossed him the snake. He let out a scream that stampeded wildlife in two counties! He started to hyperventilate and EMTs had to give him O2 to calm him down.
He didn't speak to me for two years! I still laugh about it, but then, I'm half past goofy!
I would tell you about the time I had a snake crawl up inside my pant leg, but that would burst my mystique.
Well, anyway, I'll let you get back to Nature.
That's some good stuff. You'll appreciate an upcoming episode with Jake and Vinnie. It doesn't involve a snake, but something more evil and sinister and it has FEATHERS!
TCSS.
Art
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