I must scan in a picture of Quentin on an earlier birthday, maybe from days he can’t remember  . . .  and maybe from days he can.  That would make it two photos – maybe I could go for 3, 4 or 5. Why, I could start a trend.

A couple of days ago, the grandkids wanted to hear the  “snake on the patio” story. Der Bingle was home and so I asked him to tell it; well, of course, he started it out wrong, so I had to take over, telling the part about Quentin running through the front door telling me there was a snake out back. At the time, I thought he meant a foot-long garter snake and I figured I could control myself to handle that, so I opened the patio door and steeped out.

There it was – a four to five foot fat rat snake – stretched diagonally on the patio. I immediately pivoted and U-Turned back into the family room. Quentin was standing in the doorway from the hall and I stared straight at him and said, “If you ever leave the patio door OPEN, I will kill you.” That may seem harsh, but the mere thought of sitting on the sofa to have a snake crawl over me pushed me toward the asylum; the actually event would have made me a permanent resident.

“Ha,” you think. “A snake in the family room. Hahahahaha and ha.” Well, that happened in our neighborhood in West Chester, Ohio. This lady was a fanatical housekeeper. Of course, compared to me, that could be anyone, so let us say she was a housekeeper’s housekeeper. She constantly vacuumed the shag carpeting in her famiy room . . . and that is why she could see the “S” marks that alerted her to the snake slipping into a door left ajar. So, at least she knew there was trouble afoot. Hahahahahahahaha . . .  afoot, snake? get it? hahahahahaha.

Then there was there was something else that happened often. One lady told me about it; this thing that she and her neighbors experienced. You see, a lot of the house backed right up to the woods – I mean right up to them – and that part of Ohio being hilly, many of the homes had three stories in back. Walkout basements, dontcha know? Of course, they built elevated decks off their family rooms . . . decks that had trees shading them. Birds nested in the cross supports and most people would complain  about dropping on the concrete patio below. But something overshadowed this . . . snakes would crawl into the tree branches and hang there sensing the birds under the decking. Then the snakes would drop onto the deck, maybe next to someone sitting there relaxing.

Writing about it making me hyperventilate. Gotta go to my happy place . . . hope no one left the door open there.