Step 1: Find a poisonous snake on your front porch.
Which was our case. With the then-18-month-old twins dangerously nearby. It was a copperhead. No señor.
Step 2: Make your decision. Fight or flight.
Mom-of-the-Kids? Flight. I learned in that moment of her deep and abiding phobia of snakes. Add in the shock of finding a poisonous one inches from your hand, and suffice it to say, her face was a little green and her voice at a slightly higher octave than normal.
Myself? Never having had a poisonous snake on my porch before, I halfway expected to also be of the "flight" variety. I was shocked to find myself all Hulked up with righteous hell-to-the-naw vengeance against the creepy little thing.
Step 3: Choose your weapon, and go Marie Antoinette on its venomous ass.
Mine was an ax plucked from the woodpile in the backyard. When the thing saw I was serious, we played a short game of hide and seek amongst the porch's piles of lumber and grills. And in that moment, I suddenly found myself wildly obsessed with the desire to have had thick boots on. Instead of no shoes at all...
Then you chop. When he strikes at you, chop again.
Step 4: Dead does not mean safe.
Don't jack with the body right after its dead. It's jaws can still clamp. And you can still find yourself in the ER with an anti-venom shot in your wherever.
Step 5: Dispose.
Some choose to trash the remains. Us? We had Dad-of-the-Kids toss him over the back fence to the snake-infested creek beyond.
As a warning to the others.
Thankfully, that was our only venomous snake encounter last year. Whether it be because God knew our hearts couldn't take another sudden stop and He had already wiped the years of laughter from His eyes, or ya know, maybe our "warning" to the copperhead brethren was heeded after all.
Probably the former.
