When Wildlife Invades the Office

Picture if you will:

I'm on the phone with a customer who can't seem to find the words to explain to me exactly what it is she wants, or if I'm even the person she wants to speak with. I'm concentrating on not sounding annoyed, trying to be patient, when suddenly there are ear piercing screams coming from the production office across the hall. They weren't "there is an armed gunman fixin' to take us down" sort of screams, they were more "wildlife has invaded the office" screams. Bubbles appeared in my cubicle as I looked up, wide eyed and on her way to investigate. I calmly shoved my keyboard and phone out of the way, still trying to decipher what the hell this woman on the phone wanted, heaved my big butt up on my desk, swinging my legs around and propping my feet on my printer stand.

As I sat there in a position my larger than average frame has to struggle to achieve, taking down an order on a piece of paper on top of my computer monitor, I waited to hear the verdict.

If it was a mouse, rat or other rodent, I'd be summoned to catch the poor creature and release it out in the woods. If it turned out to be a spider, I'd probably be the one to remove it as well. Bats I'll do, but they require gloves and a box and a bit more preparation. There is of course, that other possibility and until I knew for sure what we were dealing with, I was staying on my desk.

I heard, "Is it dead?" Then, "That's a rattler!"

Oh hell no. My big ass was firmly planted on that desktop.

Bubbles took it out and got rid of it, she's not afraid of them. Well, not dead ones anyway.

Apparently one of the ladies was cleaning and rearranging stuff in there and when she pulled a desk out from the wall, she saw the snake on one of the glue traps they put out for rats. It was dead, but they said it didn't look like it had been dead long. Then they told me the part I really didn't want to hear. They said it was very young. That means there are probably more.. somewhere.

I'm praying for a long, cold hard winter this year. There have been entirely too many encounters of the slithery kind.

Just for the record, I don't like glue traps. I think they're cruel, I can't stand the thoughts of anything being forced to suffer. But, if that one hadn't been there, that snake probably would have made his way the few more feet across the hall to my cubicle.

I think I'd die.

With the weather turning cooler, they're all moving down from the mountain looking for warmer temperatures and inside when they can. You see alot of them on the road this time of year because the pavement is warmer than the ground in the sunlight. As a rule, it's mostly black snakes around here. This is the first year that I've seen so many rattlers and copperheads.

It makes me want to pack up and move. By lunchtime, I'd broken out in hives around my ankles, they freak me out that bad.

I'm going to go get comfortably numb on Benedryl, while there's still some skin left on my lower legs.

Later Taters.