Our New Guard Dog

     Maybe country life isn't for me.  I'm really not an animal person and it seems like animals are a big part of the country package.  My husband, who did most of his growing up in a city, has adapted well to his country environment.  He thinks he is Tom Sawyer and delights in bringing wild animals into our house, toads, frogs, salamanders, snakes, whatever.  I thought the housewife thing to do was to greet your husband at the door after work with a kiss and a drink but instead I have to block my husband when he returns home and demand he empty his pockets before I can grant him entry into our living quarters.  He rarely listens to my pleas to leave his immigrant of the day outside.  Instead he grants at least a temporary visa to almost every one.

     A serious line was crossed today though and I briefly considered becoming an ex patriot.  I was carrying a basket of folded laundry from the back yard to my bedroom (where it would probably sit untouched for weeks).  My route was through the kitchen then the family room where I discovered my path blocked so I stopped turned around and went back to the kitchen to call Ariel and demand he crawl down off whatever roof he was prancing around on and get his tushie back home ASAP because Slithers was stretching the guidelines of his visa and was currently making his way under the very couch Aston was conducting a Lego battle on.

     Ariel must have pulled some sneaky psychological trick on me because the next thing I knew I was poking a broom under the couch and ushering the foul creature toward the back door.  Ol' Slithers made a pit stop under the recliner.  An excellent defensive tactic if you ask me because I almost gave up at that point rather than move the chair and risk crushing him.  I had zero interest in spending my afternoon cleaning up mushed snake.  In the end he made the same mistake many Hide and Go Seakers make and he sought out a new hiding spot.  I blocked his path to the radiator with my broom and he hopped right out the back door, no big deal.

     Poor Aston was pretty upset by the situation so I sat with him to patiently calm him down but Dorothy made it clear she needed a nap.  I condensed Aston's comforting  into the Reader's Digest version  and went into my room to put Dottie to sleep.  Sleep wasn't actually in her cards at that moment because I thought I might have heard a knock at the front door and we had to shuffle off to check it out.

     I flung open the front door and was greeted by none other than Slithers himself, stretched across the entire length of our threshold.  I stared at him for an instant then  I slammed the door in his ugly little face and marched to the phone to give Mr. Jones a piece of my mind.

     Mr. Jones was unimpressed with the snake's ability to navigate a course from the back door to the front door.  He wasn't dazzled by the fact that it could knock without hands.  The only point in my tale that motivated a reaction from my beloved was me slamming the door on Slithers.  "Why are you so mean, Lora?" he asked.  "He obviously wanted to come back in".  Slack jawed and speechless it was time for me to let Ariel get back to roofing lest I gather up my voice and use it to say something I might regret later.

     I decided to check on the snake, not face to face but from the safety of Clara's room.  This is the only time our U shaped floor plan has come in handy.  Usually I blame the shape of our house and it's bad feng shui (a subject I know just enough about to fuel my generalized anxiety and not a bit more) for Ariel losing his job the year we bought the house (why blame the country wide economic collapse when you are clearly missing important square footage in your career bagua?) but today I loved being able to see the front door from Clara's window so I could see if Slithers was ignoring his deportation and was trying to cross the border.  I was astounded by what I saw.  Slithers was posted on the front step (he may or may not have just finished up blowing Aston's bubbles) playing Border Patrol.

     My final order of business before I washed my hands of the whole ordeal was to call my mother and see if Grandma was afraid of snakes as she was due at my house any moment and Keeping Up With The Joneses just isn't ready for another obituary quite yet.