A Reptile Dysfunction

It's 80 degrees today. Delightful. There was a surprise on my front porch this morning. -- not delightful.

This morning, around 8:15 AM, in the month of February, in the year of our Lord 2026, I stumbled out of my pajamas into “outdoor clothes” to take my dog, Peanut Butter Jackson for his morning constitution.

I step onto the front porch, and he’s in front of me, excitedly pulling on the leash. I live in a raised house, so we start for the landing to take the steps downstairs. Just then, my half-asleep, uncaffeinated brain registers that there is a fair-sized snake on the landing.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, there is no way to adequately explain what happened next.

The sound that involuntarily came out of your faithful correspondent’s mouth was a combination of a full-throttle garbage truck and a she-elephant in labour. I backed up so fast I went back in time, jerking Peanut Butter so hard that all four paws left the ground and he flew in a Matrix-like fashion through the air in reverse as we stumbled ass-first into the door we’d just passed through barely a second before. I let out a scream so loud it registered on seismographs in four regions of the United States. Fighter jets were scrambled at a nearby Air Force base.

I locked the door and gingerly peeked out the window. It was still there.

I don’t know my snakes well enough to be sure, but I was pretty sure it was a garter snake, basically harmless and good pest control, but here’s the important part: it was on my front porch, which is some 12 feet up in the air.

My brain raced. Peanut Butter looked at me like I had sold secrets to the Russians. I was trapped in my own house.

My brother came down the hallway.

“There’s a snake on the front porch,” I said.

“Oh,” he nodded.

“PERHAPS YOU DIDN’T UNDERSTAND,” I said, carefully enunciating each word, “THERE. IS. A. SNAKE. ON. THE. FRONT. PORCH.”

“Uh-huh,” he nodded again, got his coffee, and disappeared back to his room, where I assumed he was living his best life in blissful ignorance that our very existence was in peril.

“Thanks I don’t need any coffee!” I called after him with forced cheerfulness, “I shall never need coffee to wake up again!”

I didn’t know what the hell to do.

Peanut Butter had to go out and make his morning business.

I took him out the back door, eyeing every step down into the back yard. As we walked around, I puzzled what to do next since the front of my own home was inaccessible due to reptile invasion.

Now, here’s the thing about me and snakes.

I don’t mind them, really. As long as I don’t surprise them and they don’t surprise me, all is well. Those are the rules; they are written in stone, they cannot be broken, and they cannot be bent.

No surprises.

After Peanut and I came back into the house, I went and peeked out the front door. The snake was gone.

What.

Where did it go?

I traipsed out the back door once again and crept around the front of the house, scanning under the steps, the lift, the ground, my flower bed. Nothing.

What the actual freaky deaky doo.

I looked under my car. On my driveway. Around the yard.

Gone.

I figured it had climbed onto my porch, going after the tree frog who often perches up there, or a lizard that emerged due to the warm weather, or perhaps, for laughs, it just wanted to see the lady of the house soil herself.

Ya’ll. I am but a delicate flower.

Still, it was gone. I would be fine once I changed my pants.

Around 10:30, I walked out onto the front porch to soak up some sun and sea air.

There it was.

Hanging on my outdoor cargo lift.

I ran back inside.

I texted my neighbour Kim: “The snake is on my lift! What do I do now?” I considered selling my house.

Just then, I heard the roar of a Harley outside and realized her ex-boyfriend was at her house. I stumbled down the stairs whimpering and waving my arms like someone stranded on a desert island.

“It’s hanging on my lift! Like it’s the Garden of Eden!”

Her ex ambled over, in all his manly glory, and took a broom, eventually wrangling the striped intruder - who actually tried to fight him - into a ditch at the front of the property.

“You need to get back together with him,” I advised my neighbour via text once the coast was clear and I was back indoors, changing my pants for a second time before noon.

“Nope.” she texted back, obviously not caring about my heart health.

Y’all.

I am but a delicate flower.

I do not do snakes in living spaces.