I don’t know about y’all,
but I’ve been getting pretty tired of this whole new world we’re living in
because of the pandemic. Now, don’t get me wrong. I DO NOT believe
it’s a hoax, and I don’t believe that if we just ignore it, it will “magically
go away.” That’s ridiculous, wishful thinking, to say the least, and
downright deadly to be perfectly blunt about it. But, still, I miss the
way we were. However, a couple of blogs ago, I wrote about the fact that
to everything there is a silver lining, and I continue to find that to be so
true.
My husband and I
have always enjoyed having people over for dinner, or going out to eat with
friends, but that’s been held to a minimum over these last months and we’ve
missed it. However, the other night, our dear friend came over for steaks
on the grill, and the evening that we figured would be a low-key and uneventful
one could not have been more entertaining had we had attended a Broadway show
of Hamilton, with invites to the after party.
I had just walked
out on our deck when I happened to look down to see a GIGANTIC snake lying
right where our yard meets the woods.
“Julie!” (name has
been changed to protect the not-so-innocent) I shouted. “You’ve got to
see this snake! It’s massive!”
She hurried out the
door with drink in hand, and then my
never-curses-and-never-takes-the-Lord’s-name-in-vain precious Baptist friend
exclaimed, “Oh, my God! Look at that thing! Shit! I hate
snakes!”
She immediately
tucked herself behind me while I hollered for my husband who was in the kitchen
seasoning the steaks to come take a look. McCormick seasoning in hand, he
hurried out to the deck and immediately took over the binoculars I had trained
on the reptile.
“I think it’s a
King snake,” he said, lowering them. “But I’m taking no chances. It
could be an enormous timber rattler. I’m gettin’ the gun!”
Off he went to load
the shotgun, but a minute later he came back out and asked if either of us knew
what the red button on the side of the weapon was; whether it was the safety,
or what. I knew we were in trouble then, and that the snake had the upper
hand in this situation.
“All I know is that
when we were shown how to shoot that thing,” I replied, “I memorized the order
in which we had to do certain things. Press, pump, push, fire!
That’s the order. The only problem is I don’t remember what the ‘press’
and ‘push’ parts are for.”
“Never mind,” my
husband said, waving me off. “I’ll figure it out. But do you know
where the earplugs are? A blast from this shotgun will blow my eardrums
out.”
“I got rid of ‘em
once you started wearing that mouth guard and stopped snoring,” I
replied. “But, there may be some in your nightstand.”
As my husband went
back into the house, I looked back down to see if the snake was still there or
if it had slithered into the woods. But it was still there, all
right.
“What’s it
doin’? Why isn’t it moving?” Julie asked, still using me as a buffer for
a snake that was seventy five feet away and fifteen feet down.
“Maybe’s it’s just
chillin’,” I suggested, “or sleeping. It doesn’t feel the least bit
threatened, that’s for sure. Actually, it’s probably laughing too hard to
move.”
Suddenly, my
husband reappeared wearing one of those winter caps with the furry ear flaps,
and cotton balls stuck in his ears, making him look like a cross between
a trapper from the 1800’s, and a Basset hound with an ear ache.
“Couldn’t find the
earplugs, huh?” I asked, trying not to laugh at the only thing standing between
a potentially deadly snake and me.
“No, but at least
this should muffle the blast. Okay, I’m goin’ down,” he said, as if he
were ready to parachute out of a plane into the night, inside enemy
territory.
“Good luck,” I called after him. Then Julie and I stood at the railing and watched as my
husband—in his winter hat with flaps and gun he wasn’t sure how to
operate—inched down our steep yard to the waiting serpent below.
Carefully, he crept
toward the snake, and as he did, rather than praying for his safety, I grabbed
my camera and started taking pictures, laughing and shaking my head in
disbelief at the sight before me.
Finally, my brave,
faux-frontiersman husband; my grand protector and defender of my life, got to
within a couple of feet of the snake then slowly bent down, reached out
and…picked up a 6 ft. long crooked branch.
“Branch!” he called, holding it up for us to see before tossing it into the woods.
“Great!” I
shouted. “We’re hungry! Start the grill.”
“I need another
drink,” Julie sighed, opening the door and heading for the kitchen.
Who says this new
pandemic-designed world we’re living in is boring? I thought as I
followed her inside.
It’s far from it if
we just take the time to enjoy the little things in life instead of always
looking for the big things to engage or entertain us. Ironically, this
pandemic has helped us to do just that by forcing us away from the maddening
crowd, so to speak, and providing us with the time to enjoy those smaller
things simply because we haven’t had a million other things available to
distract us.
Hopefully,
we’ll have learned something during this unusual time to bring along with us
into a post-pandemic world. If we have, we’ll continue to enjoy the
smaller things in life, and truly value those precious tiny gemstone moments
that used to slip by us when we were just too busy to notice.
