Sunday, May 26, 2013

Snakes On A (Higher) Plane

When your wife texts you that the garage door doesn't work, you would think it's just the batteries in the remote, or maybe the power's out.

But when she says it goes up a little bit then reverses, you would think it's going to be a walking stick breaking the beam of light.

And when she says there's a snake in the cable and it's keeping the door from working, you don't really think anything; 'cuz that's crazy Liz Lemon.

Snakes, why'd it have to be  snakes?

Somehow, a Texas Rat Snake decided to sneak his way into the garage and slither up the cable. And it was a big one.


He got wrapped around the pulley as the door went up, getting caught between the cable and the pulley and wreaking havoc with the door sensors. Door broken.

There will be blood.

When I finally got back from work, the entire house wanted to participate in the serpent liberation, except the woman.

When you've got an 800 pound door (I had to lift it, so don't argue with me) being held up by a tiny diameter cable, there's a lot of force that the snake's body just can't handle. Don't you feel sorry?

Trying the door a couple of times after inspecting and realizing there wasn't much I could do, I saw the snake drop onto the concrete near the puddle of snake blood. He slithered underneath the van, and that's when the wife denied the snake's stay of execution.


I was prepared to commute the sentence, since he wasn't going to last much longer, but the governor is the decider. So the boys and I worked on various ways to lethally "inject" him.

Spare me the details.

Let's suffice it to say that he's now resting peacefully in two different landfill locations. The garage door is in fine working order with a restringing of the cable, and the four foot rat snakes are 0 for 2.