12 July 2019
962
R. Linda:
I have a story to tell you on one of your favourite subjects, no not spiders, something more creepy.
The day before yesterday I was asked if I'd help a friend (Fred) set up a bed for his ailing father. Seems the father has dementia and was being released from a rehab centre where he was recovering from a fall. The old man's house was a hoarders paradise I was told, and while he was in rehab, the son had it professionally cleaned and everything, including the furniture (which he said was falling apart from the weight of boxes of garbage) was tossed. I understand this can happen when you are losing your mental faculties and sure I'd be happy to help.
The electric had been shut off since the old man hadn't been in the house for two months, and needed to be turned back on, which was to be the next day when the old guy returned. So I went to me friend's house, we got the bed frame, and mattress and a couple of old end tables loaded in his pickup truck, his wife had a box of essentials she was bringing, and off we three went to the small cape style house a few miles away.
It was dusk when we got there and we had just enough light to get the bed setup. We walked about the house to make sure it was cleaned and there were no obstacles that would hinder the old man's getting about.
We were standing in the kitchen talking when we first came in. In the dimness I thought I saw some kind of a weird decoration over the oven which was encased in brick next to the fireplace. I never really looked at it and went to help set up the bed as Fred's wife started to unpack the essentials in a cupboard. She had just finished as we came in. We stood chatting and I thought out of the corner of me eye the decoration moved, but I didn't really look because what Fred was saying was important to him and I didn't want to appear rude. Suddenly there was a THUMP sound and we all turned to see a giant milk snake wiggling into the pantry. Yvonne screamed loud enough to wake the dead and jumped back into the two of us trying to get away. Away to where I had no clue, because she'd find herself further inside the house, not outside where it might be safer.
Her scream had chills running up me back. Me whole body became a bundle of nerve endings watching the thing slide over the pantry floor to heaven knows where.
"Go, go, see where it went!" Yvonne urged in a shaky voice.
"Not me," Fred said, "you go Gabe."
"ME? No way."
"Well, you can't just leave it in here." Yvonne said to no one in particular.
"Snake wrangling isn't me thing." I said, hearing tremors in me own voice.
So Fred slowly and carefully made his way to the dark doorway and looked inside.
"I don't see it." He whispered like that would make a difference to the snake. Even if he did see it, would he have said so? Probably not because he knew, and I knew, Yvonne wanted it out of the house which meant snake contact! "Did you see the size of that thing?" he asked us backing away from the pantry doorway.
Of course we did! That's why none of us wanted to dance around with a slimy thing that size!
"I'll call someone tomorrow. Fish and Game I guess." Fred said more to calm his wife's fears than his own.
I told them I had seen it when we first came in but didn't pay it any mind.
"To think I'd been in here with it the entire time I was putting things away." Yvonne said her voice still shaky.
"Yeah," I said, "fish and game are the ones to call. I watch Northwoods Law and saw a guy who had just moved into a new house call them because he went to bed and woke up with a milk snake as his bedmate. They got it out, the guy was up and not going into the house, but the snake was still sleeping."
They both looked at me like I was crazy.
"No, true story, I saw it." I said. "Is your Da afraid of snakes?"
"No, actually he had one as a pet when he was a kid, was a garter snake though." Fred said, and then after a few seconds he continued, "Actually, I can just imagine dad waking up to a long, tall, skinny snake next to him. Probably think is my mom."
We both looked at him amazed.
"She was tall and skinny." He laughed as we got the joke, but who compares their own mother to a snake? "When their marriage broke up all those years ago, he would refer to her as a snake." I guess that last was to clarify the joke, so ok then.
We left right after and I don't know what Fred and Yvonne did about that snake. I be sure it found the formerly dirty house a vermin paradise and had been living amongst the garbage for a long, long time.
Gives me the shivers just thinking about it because you know what they say, where there is one, there are more.
Gabe
Copyright © 2019 All rights reserved
962
R. Linda:
I have a story to tell you on one of your favourite subjects, no not spiders, something more creepy.
The day before yesterday I was asked if I'd help a friend (Fred) set up a bed for his ailing father. Seems the father has dementia and was being released from a rehab centre where he was recovering from a fall. The old man's house was a hoarders paradise I was told, and while he was in rehab, the son had it professionally cleaned and everything, including the furniture (which he said was falling apart from the weight of boxes of garbage) was tossed. I understand this can happen when you are losing your mental faculties and sure I'd be happy to help.
The electric had been shut off since the old man hadn't been in the house for two months, and needed to be turned back on, which was to be the next day when the old guy returned. So I went to me friend's house, we got the bed frame, and mattress and a couple of old end tables loaded in his pickup truck, his wife had a box of essentials she was bringing, and off we three went to the small cape style house a few miles away.
It was dusk when we got there and we had just enough light to get the bed setup. We walked about the house to make sure it was cleaned and there were no obstacles that would hinder the old man's getting about.
We were standing in the kitchen talking when we first came in. In the dimness I thought I saw some kind of a weird decoration over the oven which was encased in brick next to the fireplace. I never really looked at it and went to help set up the bed as Fred's wife started to unpack the essentials in a cupboard. She had just finished as we came in. We stood chatting and I thought out of the corner of me eye the decoration moved, but I didn't really look because what Fred was saying was important to him and I didn't want to appear rude. Suddenly there was a THUMP sound and we all turned to see a giant milk snake wiggling into the pantry. Yvonne screamed loud enough to wake the dead and jumped back into the two of us trying to get away. Away to where I had no clue, because she'd find herself further inside the house, not outside where it might be safer.
Her scream had chills running up me back. Me whole body became a bundle of nerve endings watching the thing slide over the pantry floor to heaven knows where.
"Go, go, see where it went!" Yvonne urged in a shaky voice.
"Not me," Fred said, "you go Gabe."
"ME? No way."
"Well, you can't just leave it in here." Yvonne said to no one in particular.
"Snake wrangling isn't me thing." I said, hearing tremors in me own voice.
So Fred slowly and carefully made his way to the dark doorway and looked inside.
"I don't see it." He whispered like that would make a difference to the snake. Even if he did see it, would he have said so? Probably not because he knew, and I knew, Yvonne wanted it out of the house which meant snake contact! "Did you see the size of that thing?" he asked us backing away from the pantry doorway.
Of course we did! That's why none of us wanted to dance around with a slimy thing that size!
"I'll call someone tomorrow. Fish and Game I guess." Fred said more to calm his wife's fears than his own.
I told them I had seen it when we first came in but didn't pay it any mind.
"To think I'd been in here with it the entire time I was putting things away." Yvonne said her voice still shaky.
"Yeah," I said, "fish and game are the ones to call. I watch Northwoods Law and saw a guy who had just moved into a new house call them because he went to bed and woke up with a milk snake as his bedmate. They got it out, the guy was up and not going into the house, but the snake was still sleeping."
They both looked at me like I was crazy.
"No, true story, I saw it." I said. "Is your Da afraid of snakes?"
"No, actually he had one as a pet when he was a kid, was a garter snake though." Fred said, and then after a few seconds he continued, "Actually, I can just imagine dad waking up to a long, tall, skinny snake next to him. Probably think is my mom."
We both looked at him amazed.
"She was tall and skinny." He laughed as we got the joke, but who compares their own mother to a snake? "When their marriage broke up all those years ago, he would refer to her as a snake." I guess that last was to clarify the joke, so ok then.
We left right after and I don't know what Fred and Yvonne did about that snake. I be sure it found the formerly dirty house a vermin paradise and had been living amongst the garbage for a long, long time.
Gives me the shivers just thinking about it because you know what they say, where there is one, there are more.
Gabe
Copyright © 2019 All rights reserved
