Florida Wildlife: There’s More to It Than Just Spring Break
by Karen Williams - Oviedo Voice - July 25, 2003
As if there weren’t enough turbulence in the world, I found a snake on my screened-in porch.
I was blithely watering my grow-one-inch-a-minute rubber tree plant when I felt something slither over my foot. It was a bad kind of slither--the kind you would enjoy only if you were Crocodile Hunter from T.V. or if your foot were totally numb.
Jumping back slightly faster than the speed of light, I saw him: about 18 inches long, greenish in color, with a stripe on his body. Ignoring me, he positioned himself in the corner to watch the little lizards play. Well, I
couldn’t blame him. I liked to watch them too, trying to decide if they’re cute in an ugly way or ugly in a cute way. Maybe he’d figure it out….
I observed the snake--no rattle, no fangs bared, no coiling and spitting, thankfully, as I don’t allow spitting on my porch. He seemed innocuous, and a phone call to some local snake experts seemed to confirm that. However, to be safe, they suggested I capture the snake and bring it in for identification. Since capturing a snake seemed the antithesis of safe, I declined. By then he was gone anyhow.
But he came back, day-after-day, taking up residence in a cane plant to continue his lizard spectator sport. With some trepidation, I thought maybe we could co-exist, the snake and I. Then I sat on a porch chair and later found pieces of snakeskin stuck all over my jogging pants. To some people, that might be fascinating, but to me, dead skin is dead skin and I just don’t resonate with it. And I didn’t like the thought that it could have been him in his skin when I sat down. I was becoming slightly creeped-out.
Pondering what to do, I saw the snake in the cane plant the next day. Then I noticed that, at the same time, he was in the corner, which led me to believe that there were now two snakes living on my porch. Later, I caught the lovebirds curled up together around a plant, one looking one way and the other looking the other way. “Sweet and romantic,” I sighed. And then: “Omigosh, we’ll have snake babies!” I suddenly decided the only snake I wanted in the house was the kind a plumber uses to unclog the toilet (and I wasn’t too wild about that, either).
About that time, my son Joel, home from college, reinforced my belief that the snakes had to go. “No sense in us being scared every time we step onto the porch,” he declared, grabbing a sinister-looking shovel from the garage and heading for our version of Wild Kingdom.
“No! They’re God’s creatures!” I protested, throwing myself between Joel and the snake couple. “You must, er, throw them out in the yard and you must do it gently and humanely!” PETA would have been proud.
Eyes rolling heavenward, Joel grabbed two tennis rackets to try to scoop up one of the creatures. It began slithering frantically around the porch and zoomed through a tiny crack under the house. I, even more frantically, jumped on a chair. Score: Snake, 1; college boy, 0.
Abandoning the Wimbledon approach, Joel proceeded to pick up the other snake by its tail and toss it out the door into the yard. The snake was frightened, but the situation beat the heck out of whatever Joel was going to do with that shovel. Off it went in search of new vistas, new adventures, new porches. The snake under the house never emerged--probably will need years of post-traumatic tennis racket therapy.
I haven’t seen either snake for quite some time now. Too bad in a way, for I wouldn’t mind an occasional brief visit if they would just keep their skins on. They’re missing daily episodes of the Live Lizard Show, and for some reason, my porch is now home to loads of those ugly cuties.
Copyright 2003, Karen Williams
