Snakes in the Kitchen: Richard Klepfer

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Snakes in the Kitchen

by Rick Klepfer

My wife and I live in what I would call an urban area. Our old house is situated in the historic district of Cambridge and is about a hundred yards or so from the banks of the Choptank River. The houses are close together with small yards. As such, we don’t generally see much in the way of wildlife. There is a pole with an osprey nest atop it, just offshore from the end of our street, and we do see the occasional raccoon scurrying along in our back alley. There are, of course squirrels by the hundreds, but we don’t think of them so much as wildlife as urban interlopers. The most common animal on our street is the cat, both feral and domestic; they prowl the street at all hours and frequently nap on our porch chairs in the early mornings ~ taking in the sunshine that warms the east-facing side of our house.

All of this sits well with my wife, who prefers experiencing the natural world through Nature on PBS. She doesn’t limit her aversion to

critters to just marsupials or rodents, she is unwilling to share our home with anything other than humans, and even some of those are questionable. A spider spotted on the ceiling will elicit a demand that I escort it to a location outside, and at a suitable distance from our house so that the chances of it reentering are reduced to near zero.

So, it was with less than intent interest that I became aware of unsettling noises emanating from our kitchen. I am very adept at ignoring such signals until absolutely forced to respond. But when a restatement of the situation was screamed up the stairs at me, I realized that something out of the ordinary was happening. “SNAKE!” came the cry, and an emotion-filled cry it was. Perceptive as I am, I recognized the situation as “out of the ordinary” and ran down the stairs to see if we had alligators or dragons. No, we did indeed have a snake.

I had never envisioned this as a possibility. For one thing, we had never seen a snake anywhere in Cambridge. How could our first encounter with one be in our kitchen? But there it was ~ a well-nourished and active snake that measured nearly five feet in length, as gauged by the twelve-inch tiles of the floor. It slithered about the room, perhaps searching for a place to slip

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into that would be difficult for me to retrieve him from. I needed to do something quickly ~ but what? Was this a venomous snake? I had no idea. He had a diamond pattern of scales down his entire length; this didn’t seem a good sign. A quick Google search revealed that what we had was a water snake ~ not particularly dangerous, and probably a recent denizen of the nearby riverbank. Regardless, any snake, venomous or not, had to be removed. Being an experienced husband, I recognized a few things immediately. First, my wife was not going to contribute much to getting rid of the snake. Second, being the alleged man of the house, it would be my job to eliminate the problem ~ and quickly. And third ~ I really didn’t want to have to deal with a snake. I pondered desperately to devise a way to get the snake out, without having his fangs sink into any part of me. I decided to try a trash bin.

Leaving my wife with the duty of keeping an eye on the movements

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of the snake, I sprinted outside and grabbed one of the big trash barrels that we use for recyclables. Fearing that I had taken too long to drag it into the house, I was relieved, strangely, to see the snake still ranging about the floor of the kitchen. To my amazement, I was able to get my wife to see the wisdom of us now working together and for her to hold the barrel while I tried to herd the snake into it. This was not as easy as I had hoped ~ snakes are very adept at shapeshifting, dodging and perceiving that the humans chasing them are scared witless. With many false attempts, we finally got the snake fully under the upturned trash bin. Now what to do? My wife had the brilliant idea to slip something under the rim of the barrel to contain the snake while he was escorted out. A slab of cardboard, just dumped out from the same recycle bin, was put into service. Of course, just getting the serpent out was not adequate ~ what was to prevent him from coming back in? I would have to carry the snake-filled can to the car, drive him out to the farm fields outside of town and release him in some place that he would find more to his liking than our kitchen. This was done, and I was glad to see him slide into the high grass and out of our lives.

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We had the concurrent feelings of relief and satisfaction of a job well done ~ and with no casualties. I returned to my study to resume my work for the day ~ when I was again assailed by screams from the kitchen. “THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!” Damn ~ how was this possible? I again ran downstairs to find a similar, but not

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exact replica of our morning’s entertainment slithering about the kitchen. “Why me?” I implored to whomever is the patron saint of snakes.

One would hope that experience with one snake might make an encounter with a second one less harrowing, but this was hardly the case. This doppelganger of the first snake was identical, except that it was lumpier and chunkier. A quick check on watersnakes.com, or some such website, revealed that the newcomer was most likely a pregnant lady snake. This discovery intensified our desire to get the damsel out before she filled the whole house with her offspring.

This lady was not so accommodating as her lay-about husband. She spooked and retreated up under the oven. I feared that we had lost our opportunity to catch her but decided to wait to see if she reappeared. Sure enough, a quarter hour later, I saw her head tentatively peeking down from the

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cabinet, swaying about to better get the lay of the house. I admit that this maneuver gave me the creeps. I had visions of our failing to catch the thing and then I would lie awake nights, terrified that it might drop down next to me as I slept. I say “I” because under those circumstances, my wife would have moved out until I could produce photographic and notarized proof that all snakes were gone.

Despite the dire circumstances of round-\ two of the contest between us and the snakes, I could not cajole my wife into reenlistment in the barrel holding task. Happily, my cross-street neighbor, Pete, appeared carrying a long stick. Together, we corralled Mrs. Snake into the barrel and set it aside in the back room. I felt proud and accomplished that we had made another successful capture. I went out to prepare the car for transport two. When I returned, I was shocked to find that there was no longer a snake in the bin. Where could it have gone? I looked anxiously about the room and prayed that my wife wouldn’t notice we were missing a snake. I took a closer look into the barrel ~ and was relieved to see that the black-hued snake had coiled itself perfectly around the black bottom of the

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barrel and was nearly invisible. I made haste to get the thing out of the house and on its transition from a city snake to a country snake. I should have thought this through more thoroughly, but time seemed to be of the essence. I placed the snake barrel into the back cargo area of the car and headed off. No sooner had I gotten onto Race Street than I saw, in the rear-view mirror, a snake rising up out of the barrel like a cobra responding to a snake charmer’s flute. I made a screeching stop in the road, jumped out of the car and ran back to open the tailgate before the snake could slither down into some inaccessible crevice of the car.

No sooner had I done this, but the snake slid down on the pavement and sidled off between the buildings lining the street. Perhaps this snake was as relieved

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