A Little Snake Tale

At 10:15pm we had to pull our fridge out of its spot and don a headlamp to look for the 3+ foot long snake that had slithered across my counter top behind my decorative platters and ultimately into the under workings of our fridge.  It was basically a horror movie come to life.

We'd watched a show and I was ready for bed but Hots was not so I decided I'd wash the dishes and headed into the kitchen.  I started my water and began to organize the dishes when I heard one of the two platters I have leaned up against my back splash to the left of the sink rattle.  Naturally I assumed I'd caused it to vibrate with the moving of the dishes but when I looked that way I saw the snake's body in the gap between the platters slithering toward the fridge.

Instantly I could tell it was long and I-as calmly and directly as possible-let Hots know, "There is a huge snake on the counter and it is heading toward the fridge and I am not kidding I'm completely serious it's huge get in here now it's going behind the fridge it is over three feet long it is on the counter oh my gosh what is happening eeeeewwww!"

Hots did respond promptly and was able to keep it from going under our cabinets but as I mentioned earlier, it did get up into the under workings of our fridge which Hots had already slid out.

Almost equally as horrifying as a snake indoors was the floor beneath where the fridge sits which caused me to blurt out, "We are not putting this back before I've vacuumed and steam mopped the floors."

I can't say whether it was the frenzy of having just found a snake in our house or the fact that Hots has probably never noticed or cared about what's under our fridge or anyone else's that caused me to make this proclamation twice more and with a tone.  So he would hear me.

For a bit we could see it up under there, but as we tapped, poked, etc, it moved around, not coming out.

It was then that I first had time to think and began to consider it actually coming out of the fridge and made some attempt at containment.  A snake lose in the house is possibly worse than a snake holed up under our fridge.  I think.

After about 30 minutes of lying on the floor, getting up, moving the fridge some more, and poking some more with no luck, Hots suggested we just roll it outside on the dolly, plug it in, and assume the snake would relocate by morning.

That plan didn't suit me for a couple of reasons; we'd still have to take most everything out of the fridge and how would we know if it had really left?

We ended up tilting it onto the dolly and then placing a jack underneath the other side which essentially propped it up giving us more room to work.

I credit the Crocodile Hunter for the light bulb moment I thought I should place a shelter type item alongside the fridge for the snake to enter, thinking it was safe.  The grate that we'd removed from the front of the fridge was our shelter and it worked like a charm.  

The snake looked it over and then started to slither under it.  It was 2/3 of the way in when I channeled Grandpapa and grabbed it with my gloved hands (my false sense of security).  Once grabbed, it cranked down with the other 1/3 of its body and was not letting up at which point Hots said, "Yank it out!"  

I didn't want to rip it apart so we just worked slowly to coax it out and here it is!  A Western Rat Snake, I believe.

From a very young age I have been interested in snakes (though they can stay away from my house!) and knew it was not venomous or I wouldn't have attempted to handle it.

And proof it was longer than 3 feet:

One last look before we headed to the big barn to release it.  I did lose my hold on its front end walking out and there were a few tense seconds where it was looking me in the eyes and waving its body back and forth.  If it would've bitten me-or opened its mouth for that matter-I probably would've had a heart attack!  But I was able to get another hold pretty quickly.

We needed some downtime directly after before we could even think about going to bed and it should be no surprise that I had an active shooter nightmare that night so I think it's safe to say there was some emotional trauma.  Speaking of emotional trauma, after the whole ordeal I was far too emotionally spent to steam mop behind the fridge and just told Hots to push it back.

I got a lot of props for my handling of this crazy situation, but at 10:30 at night, what options does one really have?

The kids slept through it all and were quite interested in all of the details the next day and then some.

J said, "The good news is that it wasn't venomous.  But on the other hand, this means a rattlesnake could get into our house."

Thank you, J; super helpful.