Eden

In 1978 I was living in Barrington Hills on eleven wooded acres with a husband, a big apricot Standard Poodle named Arno and a baby bump who’s sex and name were yet to be determined. It was paradise- until during the renovation, bull snakes started coming up into the house through the crawl space.

Pregnant me would turn a corner and BAM!  There would be a medium-to-large reptile curled up in a corner of the hallway or bedroom.

Disconcerting- to say the least.

But as it turned out, after the healthy shock of seeing something that ought to be a belt hissing at you in your bathroom, I was not afraid of snakes.

I would lock up Arno, get a broom and a wastebasket, and I would calmly sweep the offender into the garbage bag-lined receptacle.  Then I would throw the bag into the eleven wooded acres where it belonged.

(The house had cream wall-to-wall carpeting and I didn’t want a mano–a–mano blood bath between snake and dog.  So this method of waste/snake disposal became my S.O.P.)

Hubby was never around for these random snake-sightings.  They inevitably happened Monday through Friday when he was at work.

But one Saturday, the stars aligned.  As I came out of our bedroom, I saw a snake in the corner of the hall. The master of the house was to home and so I called him.  He took one look, turned tail and ran.

“Where are you going?” I called after him.

“To get a gun and an axe!” he shouted.

Meantime, I simply heaved my pregnant self into the kitchen, retrieved the trusty broom and wastebasket, and when Dan’l Boone came back armed to the teeth, I handed him a wiggling plastic bag.

“Here, Tarzan.  Throw this out.  I don’t want you chopping up a snake on my brand new carpet.”

Thus ended his one and only snake encounter.

Until the day he called in sick.

(In twenty years of marriage this was the only day I remember that he ever needed a doctor’s note.)

He was languishing in bed, when suddenly, Arno set up an unearthly barking.  I came in to see what all the fuss was about and there it was.

Coiled up, menacing- and luckily for once on the outside of the house- a gigantic bull snake nonchalantly sunning itself on the deck outside our bedroom.  Meanwhile the dog was having hysterics on our side of the glass.

I had an obstetrician’s appointment to attend and thus I couldn’t deal with the dog/snake scenario.

I deputized my better half.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.  Get rid of that snake before I get home.” And I sailed out the door.

But two hours later, when I called home from the doctor’s office, I could still hear Arno going wild.

“Is that snake on the deck?  I told you to get rid of it,” I said sternly.

“But I like looking at it,” he caviled.  “It’s pretty.”

“Nice try, Jungle Jim.  I’ll be home in forty minutes and that reptile had better be back in the woods where he belongs.”

But when I did get home it was a stalemate on the snake snafu.  My spouse, it turned out, was deathly afraid of snakes and he refused to tackle it.

Now I had a real dilemma.  I was seven months pregnant and not as light on my pins as I once was.  And that snake was enormous.  And although bull snakes are not poisonous, their bite can hurt you- like that of a dog or a cat.

I was just not up for taking any chances.  And I couldn’t let the snake bask in the July sun and drive the dog crazy.  I knew what I had to do.

And what I first had to do was win a long-standing argument with my husband.

“I’ll take care of the snake but I have to ask you a question.  Do you honestly believe that the world treats men and women exactly the same way?” (A touchy point of contention between us ever since we had first met.)

“Yes, I do.  No difference at all as far as I can ever see,” he stubbornly maintained.

“Okay, listen and see if you could make this call.  Hello?  Barrington Hills Police?  I’m seven months pregnant and there is a giant snake on my deck.  Help.  I’m all alone here and I don’t know what to do,” I whined in a babyish voice.

“We will send an officer immediately, Ma’am.  He’ll be right out.”

But before the policeman got there, I had to hide my six foot three male in the maid’s bedroom.  If he was spotted, the jig would be up.

The aforementioned officer came out, took one look at the perp, paled, pulled his weapon and called for backup.

Swear to God.

He turned to me and said,”Uh, Ma’am, how do you usually handle this?”

“Well, I usually get a broom and a wastebasket.  But this snake is clearly too big for that.  I’ll get you a box.”

By the time I came back, his partner had joined him, and the two cops, though clearly terrified, poked the snake out of his corner and down through the deck slats. I watched until, at long last, it slithered into the carton.  (Handcuffs probably wouldn’t have worked too well.)

They all drove off and I released Hubby from the safety of his hideout.

“Admit it.  Say ‘Uncle.’  The cops never would have come out here if they knew you were at home,” I grinned.

Attention Sheryl Sandberg: Men and women are not created equal- no matter how hard they “lean in.”

Now take a look at this shy ophiologist and his charming snake charmer.

And grab me an apple, while you’re at it, sweetie.