UNDERNEATH IT ALL

You could have broadcast a daily wildlife show from the basement of my childhood home in Michigan.  We had bats, we had raccoons, we had a rogue 3-legged cat for whom my dad made a prosthesis out of a clip-on clothespin. After that, it sounded like Captain Ahab lived down there. Trips to the basement to stoke the furnace or fetch potatoes and carrots from the root cellar were trepidatious for a kid.

But the basement of our new country home––now that’s a different story. We have no outside access–-not a window, not a door. No squeaking, no chirping, no clawing, no guano or other gridoo.

In this lovely basement, I was changing a light bulb in the ceiling.  I heard a strange sound nearby, but I couldn’t place it. Since I was up on a three-step stool, I had a good view, but nothing was out of place. No haunted canning jars were spinning on the shelves, no tools were dancing Fantasia-like on the bench. Yet, there was this soft, constant, swishing sound. If you get bored, you could recreate it by dragging a shoelace slowly over a plastic grocery bag.

The sound seemed to be coming from my sewing supplies about a yard away. I had discovered those wonderful giant plastic bags that zip shut. They are waist high so one can stuff in winter coats or pillows and zip them safely away. I use them for fabric scraps. I had two bags full, each the size of a third grader, a woven history of my failed sewing projects. The bags were dead still, their usual and expected state of being.

Or were they? Did one of the plastic bags move? Just a little? Maybe it was tipping, settling. No, the side of the bag was indeed moving, softly breathing, up and down. I wasn’t alarmed. I am not afraid of quilt squares.

The zipped edge of the bag wasn’t actually zipped all the way across. There was a 2-inch gap at one end. I noticed this because a tiny tongue was darting in and out of the gap. From inside the bag.

Then some tiny lips protruded through the gap as well. And the telltale beady eyes.

You know those screams that by-pass your voice box entirely? The ones that exit through your navel and surprise even you? Well, mine surprised both of us––me and the large fox snake winding his way out of the plastic bag. When I screamed, the little guy became quite agitated.

Did I say little guy? When he finally slithered halfway out of the bag, sliding onto the shiny, green basement floor, it appeared the first half of him was about 2 feet long. His diameter was about an inch. In town, I never once thought about snake diameters. Never. I am not afraid of snakes. When they are outdoors. When I see them coming. I need advance notice. I was not getting down off that stool.

When my husband heard his name shrieking up through the register in the floor of his den, he finished his book, made a sandwich, and came right down to see what was wrong. He was not that fond of snakes, but he grabbed the handle of our snake-removal tool—a paint roller––and approached our scaly visitor. To our surprise, he easily rolled that snake right up on the lambs wool roller. I held out a big Christmas box, and he made a deposit. I put the cover on--it had a beautiful antique painting of Santa on it. For just a moment, I was thinking of re-gifting that package to certain individuals that came to mind. My husband took him out to the field.

While they were gone, I continued fussing with the light bulb, but when I glanced at the corner of the room, something was not quite right.

This one was much bigger but had the same beautiful black and brown diamond pattern. It had wrapped itself around the corner of the room in a weird triangle clinging to two walls and the floor.

This half of the duo was not so amenable to being rolled up. When my husband approached him, he lunged forward, opened his mouth wide, and hissed. So did the snake. We did not want to hurt the snake, but with the help of the roller and the lid to my Crock Pot, we eventually got him into the Christmas box. This one was relocated out near the north fence.

From that day forward, about half of the fabric scraps seemed to have brown and black spots. The other half appeared to be moving. And, it was never quite the same reaching into that bag.

More on Fox snakes:
http://www.herpnet.net/Iowa-Herpetology/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=26