There’s a snake in the rat cage, what should I do?

Ask him if he knows anything about property law!

                                                                                                  By Dave Hamby

              My wife and I were in Glen Rose a while back and in our wanderings I spotted a sign that read, “Please don’t go skinny dipping in my stock tank, it scares my cows.”   Right next to it was another one that read, “It ain’t skinny dipping any more, it’s more like chunky dunking.” I knew those signs were directed at folks like me.

              Its tough getting old, but I’ve had plenty of old timers assure me that it’s better than the alternative. I had an experience yesterday that really brought home just how old I’m getting.

              We’re about to embark on a little vacation up to New England to watch a niece get married and then spend about 10 days enjoying a whole lot of cool and a whole bunch of green while traveling around that part of the country. With two daughters that are aspiring naturalists we’ve got a whole bunch of critters at our home. They’ll need to be taken care of and Grandpa, who normally takes care of our mini-zoo, is going to be in New England also. It seems my niece is coincidentally his grand daughter.  

             We didn’t have any trouble lining up pet sitters, but it was decided that my middle daughter’s rats were going to have to live outside in a rabbit hutch we have in the back yard.  Kate, the aforementioned middle daughter, decided it would be a good idea to acclimate her rats to the outside conditions by putting them out early and letting them ease into having to live in something other than air conditioned comfort.

              Yesterday was their first day outside and when Kate came home from school she went straight to her pet rats to see how they were doing. Things weren’t going so well.   Kate showed up in time to see her pet rat Aretha being traumatized by having to watch her hutch-mate, Joan, getting eaten by a four foot long rattlesnake. Kate opened the hutch and grabbed Aretha, (she wasn’t worried about getting bit by the snake, it had a mouthful of rat,) and ran inside to inform me that we had a snake in out hutch.  I grabbed my .22 caliber rifle and went right outside to remedy things.

              Sure enough, there was a real dead Joan in the front of the hutch with about 2/3’s of her covered in snake spit. (Snakes spit out anything they have in their mouth when they’re threatened.) In the corner was a rattlesnake, all curled up and shaking its rattle, telling me to leave him alone so he can go back to eating his meal.  

             I opened the screen door to the hutch, took careful aim with my rifle and attempted to dispatch that fellow off to snake heaven.  I squeezed off one round.   Afterwards, much to my surprise, the snake was still staring at me and still shaking his rattle.  

             I missed because my eyes have gotten so bad I was having a hard time making out the sight at the tip of the rifle.  

             I squeezed off a second round and amazingly the snake was still there, well, angry, and I’m pretty sure completely deaf at this point.

            “Hey dad,” Kate said to me, “You missed the snake, but I think you’ve killed your tractor.”  

             Sure enough, just above the snake’s head were two holes in the back of the hutch that lined up with two holes in the window screen of my garage. On the other side of the screen was my Oliver Super 55 utility tractor with a puddle of green fluid growing under it.  

           “Let me try it,” she said holding out her hand for the rifle.  

            “Honey,” I replied, “You don’t know how to shoot a rifle.”  

            “At least I can see the end of the rifle,” she pointed out.  She took the rifle, stuck the barrel in the snakes open mouth, squeezed off one round and the snake’s head disappeared.

             We spent the rest of the evening with Kate, my other daughter Nan and my wife taking turns murdering some empty soda cans with the .22.  I’m thinking that with my demonstration of marksmanship they felt like if anything around our house needed killing, they’d have to do it themselves. I have to say with a touch of real pride that my girls have a pretty good aim.

             Kate’s sad about her rat, but is pretty pleased with herself with respect to her abilities in handling a rifle.

             Me, after I get back from vacation I’m going to go get me some glasses. I used to be a really good shot.  

             My Oliver’s not dead. I’ve punched bigger holes in the radiator and Big Boy’s been able to fix them. I did just get finished cutting the grass.  

            Those bigger holes are another story for another column.  

             As far as my getting old goes, I can take some comfort when I remember what my Great Grand Dad used to always tell me.  

             He’d say “Hmmmm, I forgot!”

This article originally appeared in the Round Rock Leader.   It has since been modified and is available for your publication