A Narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally Rides

The duplex where I'm living right now doesn't have much in the way of a front yard, but what little there is had become a mini-tropical jungle over the past month or so. The Anti-Cap'n was finally able to get a weed-whacker from his dad and, after a delay due to rain on Monday, last night PigPen set to work on clearing away the out of control flora. He told me to head on to racquetball with Trouble (who we had inadvertently stood up the night before because she thought we were going to be there when we were actually out playing b-ball) and that he'd join us after he was done. So, after getting ready to go and limp around the racquetball court* I walked out to my car and started to wave goodbye to PigPen, who hollered something at me. I couldn't quite understand what he was saying until about the third time: "Baby snake. By your left foot." I glanced down and, sure enough, there was a small snake right by my foot, twitching around on its back. Apparently PigPen had barely gotten started when he saw it slithering through the grass and speedily weed-whacked it onto the driveway.

To fully appreciate the situation, you have to understand that PigPen is horribly, horribly freaked out by snakes; he changes the channel if one pops up on a TV commercial, and his enjoyment of Survivor this season has been severely compromised by the abundance of sea snakes on Exile Island. So, knowing how much snakes skeeve him out on the tube, I could only imagine how he must have reacted when it came out of the grass towards him.

Man, I wish I'd been there with a camera.

Being careful not to step on the still writhing serpent, I started to get in my car and head to racquetball. PigPen hollered to The Anti-Cap'n and me "Hey, would one of you guys mind picking that up?" I glanced down at it, said, "It's still moving, I ain't touching it**," hopped into the car, and proceeded to back over the pitiful thing, leaving The Anti-Cap'n the thankless job of scooping up the remains.

The Boys of Benjiman Street are all about teamwork


*I seriously need a knee brace that fits; the last one I bought acted more like a tourniquet.
**Hey, just because I can stand to watch them in movies doesn't mean I like the danged things.