It Was Like A Nightmare!

It was horrible.

It was so awful that M. didn’t even believe me when I told him what happened.

I just……

I mean, I can’t……

I wish I were a more talented writer. Maybe then I could explain to you the sheer horror that descended upon our house this week. Monday, specifically.

A day that shall live in familial infamy.

(shudder)

Monday evening the boys and I worked at organizing the basement. Braden and I assembled some bookshelves, then dusted them and loaded them with books. Brogan and Colson cleaned up legos on the floor and organized their toys. Together the boys organized all of our movies and repacked the shelves where they are kept.

Sounds horrible, right?

I wish. That’s not even close to the horrible part.

Once the stacks of books were off the floor, and the boxes and bookshelf-wrapping were taken out to the garage, I could see that I needed to vacuum.

So the boys helped me move couches and I vacuumed under them. The DVD shelves and the TV cabinet was now dusty after the reorganization, and I attacked that.

As I got ready to vacuum around the TV, I saw some small legos that the boys had missed when picking up. They were sort of mixed in and under the cords and surge protector by the TV cabinet. I grabbed the legos to put away, and also picked up a piece of cellophane and a twisty-tie thing that I assumed were left-over from unwrapping video games or toys from Christmas.

I know. I’m taking a long time to get to the horrible part, aren’t I?

Hang in there.

I’m setting the stage.


I’m talking it through. It’s like therapy.

I set the legos off to the side for the boys to put away.

The twisty-tie thing didn’t look right, though. It felt solid and textured like a twisty-tie, but it was in an odd shape – sort of like a shaky hockey stick; not the elliptical shape you usually see when you cut them off of the toys.

Also, it was black, but with sort of a cool, teeny-tiny pattern. Not the silvery-gray you see with the twisty-ties.

So I set to look at it more closely.

Now, keep in mind, this all took place over a few seconds. It sounds longer, because you’re reading it. But it really was just a few seconds.

I turned the twisty-tie around to examine it further, and that’s when I saw it.

The head.

It had a head!

I dropped that thing as if it were on fire and suddenly found myself across the room, grabbing Braden’s arm.

“Tell me that’s plastic!” I shouted at him.

Braden was working on something else, and had no idea what I was talking about. He looked at his mother with her crazy eyes and said calmly, “.....What??”

I waved wildly in the general direction of the thing-that-was-not-a-twisty-tie and said again,” TELL ME THAT IS PLASTIC!!! TELL ME THAT IS A PLASTIC SNAKE!”

The littles ran over to get a better look, but not too closely! Wouldn't want to risk getting bit, now, right?

Braden looked at the object in all its hideousness and slowly, while trying to suppress his laughter, said, “Well….I think…”

“TELL ME IT’S PLASTIC AND THAT THERE IS NOT A SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!”

“OK,” he said. “ It’s plastic.”

“Really?”

“No. It’s real. But it’s dead,” he told me.

As if that would make me feel any better.

Braden carried the serpent out of the house while I paced upstairs trying to get the heebie-jeebies out.

(Cheerfully disposing of uninvited, deceased reptiles = a wonderful blessing a teenage boy can give his mother.)

I touched a snake. With my bare hands. I looked the snake in its beady eyes. A snake in my HOUSE!

shudder

I want my mommy.