“So there was this snake…” 7/17/2006 at 10:14 a.m.
It’s been a few days now, but I had to calm down quite extensively before sitting down to write about this experience.
I was sitting at my computer, doing my work, and I just happened to glance toward the front door. There by my front door, coiled up, skinny about 1-1/2 feet long, was a snake that had a dark-colored pattern on it’s back and a white belly. It had slithered down the hallway and into my room, under the door, I guess. I jumped up onto my chair like a freaking maniac, it would have been very comical had anyone else been in my room. I was frozen in fear, I DO NOT LIKE SNAKES, no matter if they are babies or not. First of all, I don’t know what kind of snake it is and if it is poisonous, then baby or adult, it is still dangerous to me.
So, I’m standing on my chair reaching for the phone, I call the front desk and explain the situation and tell them to please send someone to my room to unlock my door, come in and get this snake. She thinks it is funny… I on the other hand do not. The humor is completely lost on me since my hand is shaking so badly that I almost drop the phone into a glass of Coca-Cola, not to mention fall backward off my chair.
Fifteen minutes pass, I’m getting very irritable and sick to my stomach, and I really can’t wait any longer or I’m going to die from a heart attack or stroke, maybe even have a brain aneurysm. I push my chair toward the door, with me still on it, and reach as far as I can, over the snake nonetheless, and get the door open. When I say I push the chair with me still on it, I mean this literally. I used my arms and hands on the walls to drag myself, while on the chair, across the floor. This whole time as my arm is going over the snake, which I never take my eyes off by the way, it is rearing it’s head back at me further and further and coiling up on the floor. Can we say OH MY GOD, PLEASE HELP ME RIGHT NOW?
The snake will not go out the open door, so I take off my shoe, which looks very short to me considering my hand has to be closer to the snake, and I swat at it.. and miss. Damnit. WTF was that? It just jumped up and struck at me and I almost peed in my pants. Out of sheer bravery or stupidity, which one I am not sure, I do it again and hit it enough to where it flies out into the hallway and starts slithering down the hall. This is about the time I jump off my chair and start screaming like a maniac. The maintenance man comes running down the hallways, grabs some pincher looking thingy that is about 4 feet long with a grabber on the end, and we follow the snake down the hallway. I make him walk in front of me.
This is a great time to find out the maintenance man is just as afraid of snakes as I am, only he doesn’t speak English. Nice. So he’s alternating between mumbling in Spanish and screaming like a girl, while I’m just yelling in English “would you please stop trying to grab it with that useless piece of crap and kill the stupid thing?!”
Spanglish. I’m in a movie. Okay, guys.. where are the hidden cameras?
He responds to this comment with “el dios del oh, alguien me ayuda” or something to that effect, which I find out later pretty much means “Oh my God, someone please help me”. I don’t speak Spanish, even though my last name is Ruiz. He gets on his little cell phone and calls the other maintenance guy and they have a 20-minute long conversation in Spanish. Um, helloooo…. the snake?? Granted I can only see and hear his end of the conversation, I have to admit the theatrical hand motions and facial expressions were very entertaining. It seriously had me wondering what I must have looked like when I came running out of my room and down the hallway with one shoe on my foot and the other one in my hand.
I start asking random people coming in and out of their rooms if they are afraid of snakes. Most of them look at me like I’ve lost my marbles, but I finally found an older gentleman in the room next to mine, who has lived around snakes all of his life. Lucky him. He takes the maintenance mans grabber thingy, while giving him a look that says “are you retarded or do you just sound that way?”, and walks over to the snake like it’s no big deal and starts pounding it with the end of the stick. I yell “yeah, now that’s what I’m talking about!” Sorry, no compassion for snakes.
He grabs it with the end of the otherwise useless tool, thinking it is dead, and begins to move toward the door leading outside. I’m following because I want to actually see this thing go, but about halfway down the hallway the thing starts jerking around at the end of the stick. I bet you didn’t know a short little girl could run as fast as me. I ran down the hallway screaming and I think I did the sign of the cross and mumbled a quick prayer, but it all happened so fast that I can’t really be sure. The man assured me later once I came out of my room again, that the snake was indeed dead, but he still likes to ask me if I’ve seen any snakes lately. Ha ha.. very funny. So does the maintenance man, but obviously he has no room to talk. I learned something new in Spanish just for him. “Bese mi asno”. Look it up.
I shook for 2 hours and had to lay down and work later. I really wished I had some Xanax or some Ativan at that particular moment. My heart rate had to be like 165 and I was sure I was either going to pass out or die.
When I asked how this snake could possibly get into my hotel room, I was told that it probably came in through an A/C vent then slithered under my door. So, needless to say I’d like to cover my entire A/C unit with plastic wrap and seal my door shut with duct tape, but unfortunately I need to breathe so I guess I cannot do that. If I never see another snake for the rest of my entire life it will be FINE BY ME.
My Paper Story, Part One. Ramblings of a Bipolar Sober Chick
Sorrow of a Clown. Ramblings of a Bipolar Sober Chick
The Little B
The pages of my life, ripped to pieces; slowly being bound back together. Just a girl; thriving & recovering despite the stigma of mental health. I am just a simple girl, and I have bipolar 1 disorder with severe depression. I struggle with self-injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), Avoidant Personality Disorder, codependency, and I am a survivor of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; I am also a recovering drug addict. I am a cancer survivor. One thing you should probably know before you read any further, if you haven’t figured it out already, is that I am extremely transparent. I am a Jesus-loving Christian, but I have plenty of flaws and defects, and although I’m not proud of them, I’m not afraid to show them. It means I am human, just as God created me. We all have things to work on. I live in Central Florida and I have 4 amazing (almost grown) children. My 2 boys are 21 and 14, and my 2 girls are 18 and 16. None of them live with me anymore. I have an incredibly long story. Perhaps some of the pieces will fall into words…. here. Winter Park, FL, USA