Bad Days and Irrational Fears.

Yesterday was one of Those Days.

You know the ones.

You wake up thinking you have the whole day sorted and then things go to hell in a hand basket right from the very beginning.

Plans got changed and rearranged and traumas began before we’d even been out of bed for fifteen minutes. Just when I thought I’d gotten sorted with one disaster the next one happened… oh it was joyous.

By far the highlight of the day occurred around about 1pm….

We were just about to leave to take Zoe to the Dr when I remembered I needed to let the chooks out. I rushed out the back, flung open the door to the little chook’s house and looked down to see a snake sitting in the door way.

A S-N-A-K-E!

I don’t like snakes.
I REALLY don’t like snakes.

I slammed the door on the snake, and the chickens and just about vomited on the spot. I regained my composure and then almost lost it again when I realised how close my inadequately shod foot had come to the little black snake.

Did I say already that I really don’t like snakes?

It wasn’t a big snake, just a small, black snake, though still deadly enough. It was just laying there, curled up, enjoying the little patch of sun, after gorging itself on frogs or mice I expect (we have plenty of both after all the recent rain). Until I disturbed it. Now it was scared and agitated…and so were the chickens… heck so was I!

Somehow I managed to muster a little bit of brave, enough to open the door again and let the chooks out, but this time I had my gumboots on and a heavy shovel in one hand. This move didn’t make the snake, the chooks or I any happier but eventually all five chooks managed to get out safely.

Now what?

A snake in the backyard?

Against the law, and my live and let live ideals, our general policy would be to kill it… for me to kill it. I had the shovel, I even got in a better position and leaned in for a closer look, but I didn’t have it in me.

So I did what any rational, yet frightened person would do… I called for help.

No idea what I thought my husband could do about a snake when he was 300 odd kilometres away but I called anyway. He tells me to shut the door to the chook house and he’ll sort it out when he gets home. So once again I have to get close to the blasted thing while I shut it in to the chook house…. boy am I being brave!

That done, we are now running late so I rush inside, adrenaline pumping, legs shaky, and #4 doing somersaults (Do you think the baby enjoyed the adrenalin hit or was desperately trying to get away from it?)

Then I get on with the rest of the day…School, Dr’s, chemists, blood noses, getting dinner etc etc…. But every now and then I think I see something black out the corner of my eye. Every now and then I am sure I can feel something brush past my legs or slide over my feet. Every now and then I want to vomit.

You see, I don’t like snakes. Surely I’ve already said that?

I can cope with a snake in the zoo. I have even held a python. I know that it’s not the snake’s fault that our lives collide. I know they are just going about their snakey business. I also know that they are as scared of me as I am of them. We expect there to be snakes where we live, we even expect to come in contact with them, but in the five years we’ve been here this is the first time I’ve come in contact with one…. and I didn’t enjoy it much.

It’s just this irrational fear that creeps in when I think I, or my family, might be threatened by an unseen snake. The idea that the snake is residing somewhere in our back yard really bothers me. If it were out in the paddock, then I’d be much happier… but in the backyard, where the kids play, where I hang the washing? I’m not dealing very rationally with that idea.

The kids on the other hand. are disappointed it didn’t hang around so they could see it. They have, however, promised me that will make sure they wear their gumboots outside AT ALL TIMES, and that they will stay away from the chook houses for a while.

Twenty four hours later and I am still not able to go outside without ridiculous crazy ‘snakes are stalking me’ ideas popping into my head. I’ve refused to let any poultry out of any house, at least until my over active imagination dies down, and I’ve ordered a total mouse eradication program to begin. I know this isn’t going to stop snakes and me bumping into each other again at some point in the future… but it makes me feel better… sort of.