I like to think that I’m not afraid of snakes. Am I a snake enthusiast? Absolutely not. But, I have hiked enough off-the-beaten-path trails, cooled off in enough rocky creeks, and camped in enough wooded areas in the summer months across our great, snaky state to know that occasional encounters with reptiles of the serpentine variety are pretty much inevitable. I’ve studied and just about memorized the “Snakes of North Carolina” identification chart that I’ve saved to my phone, and know to avoid, at all costs, limbless species with diamond-shaped heads, a single row of belly scales, elliptical pupils, or rattly tails. I’m pretty proud of the fact that in the handful of too-close-for-comfort instances that a snake has snuck up on me (or, more accurately, I’ve snuck up on it), I’ve been able to maintain my composure relatively well, and handled the situation as experts instruct you, backing slowly away from the snake with no sudden movements while never averting your eyes from it. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, prepares you for a chance meeting with a snake inside your home. There is no identification chart on the whole World Wide Web, no laundry list of tips from a well-trained wildlife specialist, or past OUTDOOR experience with any species of snake on God’s green Earth that could adequately equip a mother of two young children for the moment that she flips the lid of her kitchen trash can to discard a protein bar wrapper, only to come face to scaly face with a snake, curled up snug as a bug between crumpled paper towels and empty applesauce pouches. That is not a theoretical situation, but rather, a very real thing that happened to me last summer. And, if you’re curious to know how someone who likes to think she is not afraid of snakes handled this situation, I will tell you. First, as any strong and independent woman would do, I slammed the lid of the can shut, called my husband at work, and spent the first 30 or so seconds after he answered on a very impressive display of hysterics. I was eventually able to compose myself enough to utter the words, “There is a SNAKE in our KITCHEN trash can!” When I began to realize that the offending serpent was going nowhere fast, and with my wits finally about me, I began to brainstorm my own spur-of-the-moment, panic-inspired snake removal plan. First, I flung open the lid once again and darted to the opposite corner of the kitchen. I zoomed my camera phone as far as it could possibly zoom, snapped a photo of the eerily unbothered imposter, and texted it to my husband to confirm that it was, most likely, a relatively harmless red-bellied snake. My husband calmly told me that we could not risk the snake getting loose indoors. He asked me if I could find a way to get the snake out of the house. I asked him if I could, instead, find a way to burn the house down. After he reminded me that our house was not insured against arson by the homeowner, I realized that the safety of the four human inhabitants of our household rested on my shoulders alone. I put the phone on speaker so that I could maintain communication with my husband in the event that the snake struck me down mid-removal. I sheathed my trembling hands in my thickest pair of oven mitts and used my longest tongs to slam the lid of the trash can shut. I weighed the top of the can down with the heaviest bowl I could find, took a few deep breaths, and grabbed the heavy aluminum can by its handles. Carrying it at arm’s length, I sprinted out our back door, across our backyard, and launched the whole daggone trash can, snake and all, into our big green rolling trash can, and slammed the lid shut. For good measure, I pulled a concrete cinder block from our toolshed and heaved it on top of that trash can. There would be no escaping for Mr. Snake. When I told my husband what I’d done, rather than congratulate me on my bravery, he chuckled at my unique snake-handling tactics and even dared to mention under his breath something about “poor snake” and “expensive simplehuman trash can.” And apparently, he’s not the only Mullen man with a soft spot in his heart for snakes, even ones that induce trauma into an otherwise peaceful July day for an unassuming mother and two innocent children. Not even 30 minutes after I texted my father-in-law my zoomed-in photo and extraction story, his truck pulled into our driveway. The kind-hearted, critter-loving man dug through our trash until he found the snake, alive and well, at the bottom of the pile. He used gardening gloves to gently relocate it to a zip-close bag that would offer safe passage on the truck ride from my house to his ultimate release in a remote field, which my father-in-law assured me would be many, many miles from my kitchen. To this day, we still do not know how that darn snake ended up in our trash can. I’m still grateful for a father-in-law who saved me the lifelong guilt of causing one of God’s creatures a slow and agonizing demise, trapped inside a double wall of trash cans sealed with a cement slab. And, I am still quite ungrateful for my younger brother, who, after hearing the tale of the kitchen trash can snake, said to me, “You know what? I bet that snake was after the big ol’ rat who got in first … ”
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