Summer and the Poison Snake

Summer and the Poison Snake

I've always been rather assertive. At the age of three I told jokes that made people laugh, simply because I told them to. Here is a classic: “The dog went into the house... LAUGH.” Now, in case you're not so sure about this story and not so sure about Why the Chicken Crossed the Road, let me put your mind at ease. My story is hilarious. In fact you're going to laugh every other sentence, click the like button and after posting several comments about how amazing this story is, you'll hit the follow button. Isn't life so much easier when people just tell you what to do? So without further delay, here is the story of me (Summer) and the poisonous snake.

“Summer, come close in the chickens.”

I groaned, “Mo-om! I don't wa-a-ant to!”

“Okay, come on, I'll come with you.” Mom said, trying and failing to get me excited about walking out in the dark to latch the chicken coop. I dragged my feet making sure mom knew I was not pleased. In the United States, you might have to worry about skunks lurking around waiting to spray you, but in the Savannahs of Africa there were snakes to worry about instead.

“Oh!” mom gasped, edging around a white clump of feathers. “Are those chickens?” Mom asked as she spotted a second clump of feathers a few feet away.

“Yes mom, what do you think they are?” I said, my voice held some surprise and it trembled a bit before I could pull myself together.

“Are they sleeping?”

“No mom.” I said flatly, exasperated.

“Are they dead?” She said incredulously.

“Well, what else would they be? Just look at the way they are lying on their sides.”

“Are you sure they're not sleeping?” I don't know how she could think they were sleeping.

“Mom, chickens don't sleep on the ground like that. Besides, they would have moved when you got close to them.” I picked up a stick, first making sure it wasn't a snake and waved it close to the chickens. They didn't stir.

“We should tell dad.” I said, knowing with my amazing intellect that that was the best way to deal with the problem.

“Well let's close in the chickens and go and tell dad.”

“Fine.” I was getting just a bit unhappy about being outside in the dark with two dead chickens at my feet. I walked forward to close in the chickens and then leapt back. I had heard a hissing.

“Did you hear that?!” My voice wavered with real fear.

“Hear what?” Mom asked skeptically.

“That hissing! Didn't you hear it?”

“Noooo.”

I frowned at her. I was not going to close the chicken coop and risk dying. Knowing that I had a longer life ahead of me than my mother, I kindly allowed her to close in the chickens.

Then getting too jumpy and too nervous to carefully examine every stick to make sure it wasn't a snake, I ran back inside.

“Hey dad,” I said my eyes glittering with the excitement of everything. “There are two dead chickens out back, and I heard a hissing in the hen's house.” All my fears had vanished upon entering the brightly lit up and snake-free house.

Dad soon armed himself properly with a plastic baseball bat and a broom. Dressed in a wet white T-shirt with a picture of a globe on it and red shorts he went to vanquish the foe.

All us kids danced around inside waiting for him to return.

Dad soon returned undefeated, or at least not yet dead. He was not quite victorious either. The snake was still alive.

“I'm glad I didn't try to get it. I heard it's hissing, its huge!”

I was flattered and greatly gratified. “See!” I told mom.

Then as dad was too smart to go into combat with the great serpent, everyone decided the best course of action was to call over the neighbor with great snake killing capabilities.

After that everything wrapped up nicely. With two gunshots the snake was dead and everyone rushed outside to behold the fallen foe. It's black scaly dead body twisted in figure eights even after it's head was chopped off. There were lumps in it's scaly profile that told us it had been munching on eggs. The headless corpse finally decided to settle down a bit and it was thrown in the bushes beside our property. It was about four feet long.

My parents weren't so insistent that I close in the chickens after that.

- Summer