Just Call Me Rodney - I Get No Respect

There's a knock on my door. I stumble, half awake, in my underwear, to see who it is at this hour. I open the door and a child, no more than 10, is all out of breath and excitable and is trying to say something. It sounds like, "Can you come and kill a snake at my house?" I say, "There's a snake at your house?" He answers, "Yeah." So I tell him to wait a second, I go put on some pants and shoes, go grab my snake stick and a grabber tool and go back to the door and follow the kid across the street.

We walk into the backyard where the mother is holding a snake down with a shovel, standing at arms length and screaming, "Oh my god. Oh my god".

Most of the snake is covered by the shovel. Part of it is under some grass. But as I look closer I see a light diamond pattern across his back. I think of two things: Texas rattler (western diamondback), Texas rat snake. Completely different situations!

I ask the lady to get me a canvas or cloth type bag and I take the shovel away from her. I release the snake from the grips of the shovel and let it lengthen out so I can see what it is. I put the pole and shovel down and hold a part of its body with the grabber. The snake begins to attack the grabber in earnest. Hit. Hit, hit. Hit. Hit, hit. Hit. And it's wiggling it's tail.

Could it be so young it has no rattle yet? Could the lady have cut its rattles off with the shovel? I need to see this thing better. The lady comes back with a ripped plastic grocery bag. I dismiss it. I move the grabber. She returns with a small paper sandwich bag. I try to explain what I need while I'm maneuvering this snake. She returns with a brand new, print, pillow case. I tell her that would work, but she's going to lose it, so maybe she could find an older, not so pretty pillow case. This is getting frustrating!

Finally, I pick up the snake and move it to a patch of grass near the edge of the patio that's walked down and very low. I want to look closely at the snake because up until now all I've seen is a piece of its back, its head as it struck and the end of its tail. And just as I'm about to be 100% sure of what it is, the lady taps my shoulder, I turn my head, she shows me a pillow case from her child's doll, I tell her, "No", and I look down at the snake and just in time to see a Texas Rat Snake disappearing under the porch.

I tell the lady she has nothing to worry about. The snake is not poisonous and even though it likes to strike over and over, its teeth are so little it probably wouldn't even break skin. "Besides," I tell her, "It's so scared now, you probably won't see that snake around here ever again."

So she says, "Then why didn't you catch it?"

I'm going back to bed.

Hahahaha good story you hero xxx

ok Rodney..