Sunday
5:45 PM. The gas oven is turned on to preheat dinner rolls.
Henry ate the last pack before it even thawed so getting this far tonight is a
feat all by itself. Spaghetti marinara, steamed broccoli, dinner rolls…yum. And
we didn’t even have water in the morning as the pump had blown. David installed
a new pump. I replaced the leaky kitchen faucet. Life is good.
5:50 PM. Something smells like a cook-out, but since there
isn’t one, I ignore it.
5:51 PM. BLEEP. The smoke alarm goes off. I don’t see any
smoke. The alarm stops quickly. Just a fluke, I think. (The last fluky thing
that struck me was the height restriction bar at the Hampton parking garage…it
wasn’t a fluke. You can’t get in there without a lot of bang, bump, and bang if
you drive a Matrix with a vertical kayak rack).
5:53 PM Henry starts barking and Abbey starts screeching.
They seem to will the smoke alarm into fighting mode.
BLEEP.BLEEP.BLEEP.BLEEP.BLEEP.
5:54 PM Black smoke from the fantasy cookout spills out of
the oven. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP. Henry is yelping, Abbey is about
to bust my eardrums. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP. I yell for Noah to take Abbey outside. Henry
is already on the porch. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.
5:54.30 PM Fearing a meltdown... BLEEP. BLEEP.BLEEP.BLEEP...I pull the plug on
BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP the oven and turn everything off (never mind that I have a
gas oven and did not think to turn the gas off at the valve). BLEEP BLEEP
BLEEP. I can hardly concentrate. Henry is barking and Abbey is screeching from
the porch and Ariel is barking… BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP and that alarm!
5:55 PM I stand on the counter top to BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP reach the smoke alarm. BLEEP. BLEEP BLEEP
BLEEP. My ears are killing me. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP It won’t turn off. Through the
smoke I begin to decipher that the fantasy cookout has been ruined…burned…it’s
a stench. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.
5:56 PM Having given up on finding an off button BLEEP BLEEP
BLEEP or opening the battery compartment, BLEEP BLEEP I land a heavy punch to
the alarm with my fist. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.
5:56:30 PM Momentary peace. I manage to ignore the alarm. As
much peace as you can have in a house filled with smoke, an alarm blaring with
two dogs in an asynchronous uproar, a parrot screeching on the front porch,
and a kid wanting to know what I did to dinner.
5:57 PM Like superwoman, I leap from the counter and the
tips of my fingers brush against the switch for the ceiling fan. Smoke swirls
around my head in clouds as if I am the eye of the hurricane as I open the
oven. More black smoke billows out.
5:58 PM With the smoke lifting, I peer into the oven. I
think I see a snake coming out of the space where there would have been flame.
It’s not moving. BLEEP. BLEEP.BLEEP. No, it must be a large piece of insulated
wire. BLEEP. BLEEP. BLEEP. The kind with the woven metal covering.
5:58:15 PM Wait, I think the wire has a mouth. BLEEP BLEEP
BLEEP BLEEP. Dogs barking. Abbey making noise.
5:58:30 PM No. It’s a wire, but it is a gas oven and there
shouldn’t be any big wire. BLEEP BLEEP Dogs still barking.
5:58:45 PM Snake
5:59 PM Wire BLEEP. BLEEP.BLEEP
6:00 PM I climb up on the counter again and deliver the
fatal blow to the smoke alarm.
6:00 -6:05 PM (spent time looking for corkscrew and finally
found one on Noah’s pocket knife… wine uncorked around 6:05)
6:06 PM Epiphany: this is what husbands are for. I’m not a
total weeny, but I'm no good with dead animals, and really when someone else can deal with this, why not share the
joy? I call David to find out when he will be back at the house. Why…Because
there is a problem I need you to fix. What’s up? You wouldn’t believe me if I
told you. C’mon. Okay, so I think I cooked a black snake and I need you to get
it out of the oven so I can bake the dinner rolls.
6:06-6:15ish. I enjoy a nice Merlot while watching the oven
like a hawk. The dead snake does not move. Noah calls his grandma to share the
news.
6:15 PM David dons special chemical gloves and a head lamp
to handle the snake removal which he undertakes with needle-nosed pliers. At
first only the top half comes out--the head half. The snake is too fat to pull the bottom half
through the opening. Photo op with the head-end.
6:20 PM David dismantles the lower shielding plate on the
oven and removes the tail end of the snake. It is quite charred. All in all,
probably a 4 footer.
6:21 PM This is where David and I really differ. He cleans
the oven before putting everything back together. I fret about putting
chemicals (bleach) into the oven. Had I to do it all on my own: No gloves. No head lamp. No
pliers (just a fork). No clean-up with bleach. I would have gotten the bottom
half out, but then I would have just put everything back together and turned
the oven back on for the dinner rolls. I would claim that burn-off would
sterilize everything. In between all of that would have been the dry heaves and near fainting which happen when I am in the vicinity of a dead animal. It is heart breaking to think I murdered that snake. I would have been much happier to have had to remove a live one. Anyway, sometimes I really do appreciate our differences-David's and mine. Mental note to self: Picky-ness should not
always carry a negative connotation. It can be a good thing, too.
Dinner was great. We did not eat snake. I’ve heard it tastes
like chicken, but I know it smells like a
burger cook-out. Maybe next time? Happy baking everyone. It's summer time and the snakes are coming for dinner.
