The Pee-Pee Dance

I hate snakes. I mean I really don't like them.

I know that there are some folks who like and protect snakes. I applaud you because the rational part of me knows that on the whole they serve some purpose on this earth and should be protected and left alone. But my guess is that most sane people, like myself, don't care for the sneaky little suckers.

On the whole I am a middle of the road, level headed person who is not given to histrionics and drama. But even a little stripped garter snake can reduce me to a big, quivering, crying, pile of goo. I hate that I act like such a girl, so I am working to over come my irrational fear.

Recently, some friends of ours bought a vineyard. I call it a vineyard in respect of the dream that someday it will produce fine fruit for my friends. But right now the vines are brand new sticks with leaves and there is a fine collection of various livestock; so with it's beautiful rolling hills and spring-fed pond it is more farm than vineyard. Country life at it's best.

My friends are wonderful people. Highly educated (he is a medical doctor and she an attorney) smart, funny, and generous to a fault. Very down to earth, laid back people. Why they want me around is beyond me. (Am I more "cause" than friend?....hummm.) But they keep having my family and I back and always make me feel comfortable and welcome. But I sometimes worry that when I speak, my backwoods roots are showing. So when talking about "country life" I am comfortable that I can speak with some authority. I am, after all, a hillbilly.

A couple of weeks after Easter, my friend bought both of my children and her three youngest kids each a baby chick to add to their growing collection of chickens. Because the newest additions were so much younger and could slip out of the chicken pen, my friend kept the smaller chicks in a wire cage on the ground of the chicken pen. I mentioned that maybe she should get them up somehow off the ground because of snakes. She looked at me like I was out of my tree and said "snakes? here?" Like we are in the middle of down town St. Louis and not back woods Cape Girardeau county and the chances of a snake are nil. She had not thought about that aspect of country living too much I guess.

Fast forward a week or so, to a beautiful, windy, early spring day. It is so windy, in fact, that we had to all but yell to be heard when out side strolling. The kids are all having a grand time playing and are headed down to the chicken pen. Suddenly we can hear screaming and running. We turned to see which one had gotten hurt or who was fighting now. (You put a 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 year old all together you know someone is going to cry about something eventually.)

We finally figure out that they are screaming something about an anaconda eating all the chickens.

OH CRAP. My worst nightmare has come true. My friend can not witness me act like some Jerry Springer guest. I can NOT fall apart. I will not cry. I will not scream or scare the children. I have to hold it together. I will step up and help save my friend's prized chicks. Where is my big, strong, firefighter husband when I need him!!!!

So we both take off running TOWARD the snake. I am silently chanting to my self, "I have to hold it together, I can not cry or act stupid, I have to be brave..."over and over again while RUNNING toward the SNAKE! You have no idea how brave that was for me. I'm thinking of what to do once we reach the pen and turn and yell at my friend that I need a stick. She stops, looks down, and precedes to hand me last year's dried up Mum bush that looks like tumble weed. I stare at her idea of a snake killing tool, and then try to think of a better describing word, like shovel or hoe or shotgun or laser death ray. But I was so freaked out that all I could get out is: "I NEED AN IMPLEMENT!" So she takes off to the shed for said monster snake killing tool. I then scream at the six year old to "GO GET Derrick!!"

I then opened the pen door and stepped into what felt like the bowels of hell. First I saw four little chicks straining to fit their bodies through the wire cage, and in the bottom of the cage was the biggest, ugliest, fattest, black snake with the slowest baby chick half hanging out of its nasty jaws. I pray that my friend brings the death ray.

My friend then kicks open the door carrying some kind of 3 pronged rake thing-y. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!? She then precedes to see the snake and start moaning "oh no, oh no, oh no" while doing some kind of weird hand flapping thing. I couldn't tell if she was upset or having a seizure. This was so comical, for a brief nano-second I giggled. If two hours before this incident, you would have told me that I would GIGGLE while standing a foot from what is obviously a giant specimen of black snake, I would have said that you were delusional. But there I was, enjoying someone else's irrational fear.

The snake, by this point, has seen the writing on the wall and is trying to spit Taffy the dead Easter chick out just as fast as he can work is huge hinged jaws. The sight of this sent my friend over the edge and she is now doing some kind of grown up version of the Pee-pee dance while holding herself. My husband appears about this time with a proper shovel, and now that he is here, I join my friend with my own pee-pee dancing skills and wailing. (Now when one women who has had two 9 pound babies does the pee-pee dance with a woman who had birthed 5 children, well let me say just stand back, because someone is going to get wet.)

As I start becoming aware of my surroundings, it occurs to me that my friend has been just as hysterical as I ever have been. And for that I will love her forever. That is where true friendships are forged. During the pee-pee dance.