Once in the past, I think it was last summer maybe, I found something unusual in the cellar. It was a little, very dead, garter snake. It was maybe a foot long, just laying there on the cold tiled floor, dead and stiff. I had to look at it for quite a while to determine that it wasn’t some toy I hadn’t noticed before. Nope, it was an honest to goodness dead snake.

Jen one upped me today.

She called me over to the cellar door. Look at the bottom of the stairs, she says. Is that a snake? Holy crap it certainly was! Another Garter Snake, but this time the sucker was huge! He was all balled up on the cold tiled floor, but I’d guess that if we straightened him out he’d be three, maybe four feet long.

I threw some things at it to try and spook it, but nothing worked. I went down to the last step and hit it with something. It moved, but not on its own. So if it was dead it was recently dead. It wasn’t stiff yet. I got a barrel and some cardboard and scooped it into the trash. I’m not sure, but at the last minute I believe it moved its head. I don’t think it was dead, just frozen by the cold tiled floor.

He’s gone now, but I am greatly displeased by this turn of events.