A slithery problem

Source: http://www.gogobot.com/east-grinstead-united-kingdom

I grew up in a rural part of Delaware. Now, for Delaware, it was rural; however, in other, larger states, it might have been considered suburbia. Whatever you might call it, it was wonderful. This was a different era, so traffic was minimal and it was quite safe for kids to wander around unsupervised.

Our house was surrounded by empty fields on all but one side. You’d think that with all that open space we’d have been overrun by wild creatures. However, because they had so much real estate, the creatures had more than enough room to explore and hide in without having to worry about humans.

Source: http://fl.biology.usgs.gov/posters/Herpetology/Snapping_Turtles/snapping_turtles.html

One of the first wild animals I came upon when we moved was a snapping turtle — fortunately, it was dead. Since I was only in second grade, the body looked about the same size as one of those snow saucers. The wicked beak made me nervous, but not nearly as nervous as the bullet hole in the creature’s shell.

Source: http://loyalkng.com/2010/04/18/tiny-tortoisebox-turtle-taco-responds-wake-lil-cute-mammal/

Finding a box turtle was always exciting (for us, not the turtle). I saw one just a few weeks ago in the back yard of a friend who lives in a relatively rural area. I was entranced, as were two preschool girls. The colors on the shell, the way the little guy tucked everything inside his home, and the “just popped into existence” feel of the experience. Finding a turtle never gets old.

I once literally stumbled on a snake while it was swallowing a frog. I nearly tripped on something that looked weird, and when I put a hand down to try to make sense of it, the snake backed off its meal and slithered off. Ew. I felt bad about it, actually. The frog was dead, and here I’d denied the poor snake a meal.

I was a tomboy (is that word still used?), and my best and only friend and I would wander the fields and woods over about a two-square-mile area. Streams were always lots of fun to play in and around. Little minnows, crawfish, and salamanders were fun to spot and observe.

Source: http://www.everwonder.com/david/snakes/blacksnake.html

On the day my friend and I found a blacksnake, it felt like we’d hit the lottery. We’d been down by a creek, poking around under rocks and trying to avoid brushing up against the skunk cabbage that seemed to be everywhere. I don’t remember who spotted the snake, but I do remember that it took both of us to carry it. That baby was going home with us!

I knew that we had a cage my dad had originally built for our short-lived experience with gerbils. However, the cage was fairly spacious, had a good lid, and was raised on old table legs. It was perfect for our snake.

We walked about the half-mile to my house and were walking across the back yard when we heard the “boom” of the back door being slammed shut. Even from across the yard we heard the lock being turned into place. We stopped in our tracks and looked at each other.

From one of the upstairs windows came my mother’s voice.

“You get that thing out of here!” she yelled.

“I just want to get the cage.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want it one step closer. I’m not kidding.”

Bummer.

So we left and went to my friend’s house to see what we could find to house our snake. I don’t recall what happened after that.

My mother’s mother died quite young, and my mother was raised by an aunt who was terrified of snakes. Not surprisingly, my mother picked up on her fear and made it her own.

Source: http://blog.pubquizusa.com/archives/5743

My mother’s fear is all-encompassing. When I say she’s afraid of snakes, I mean that she has trouble looking at pictures of them in magazines, images of them on TV, and even accessories made to look like them. She will only handle a toy snake in the direst of circumstances (e.g., taking it away from a child as a punishment).

I was just a year or so out of college when my mother called me at work. She’d been gardening behind her house in historic New Castle (think of a miniature Williamsburg on the shores of the Delaware River). She’d told me before about how my step-father had spotted a snake sunning itself out back. It’s a real testament to her need to putter in the yard that she was willing to take the chance of maybe encountering the snake while she was out there.

I knew something was up when I heard the quaver in her voice.

“Do you think you could stop by here on your way home?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I found the snake and was able to trap it under a flowerpot. Do you think you could move it somewhere else?”

“Sure. No problem.”

When I arrived that afternoon, my mother was in the house, so I made my way out to the garden. There on the brick path was the promised flowerpot. I lifted the pot and found … nothing. See, the thing about flowerpots is that they have a drainage hole in the bottom. The snake must have slithered out the hole and gone on its merry way.

My mother was not pleased to hear the news. It was weeks, maybe months, later when I learned that my mom came upon the snake again. This time it must have looked at her funny, because she screamed. My stepfather and a man who was helping him came running. The man was a recent immigrant from Poland who didn’t really speak English. But he was able to figure out what the problem was and went over and picked up the snake. It was apparent from his gestures that he wasn’t impressed. Being a manly man, though, he took the snake away, and working in the garden became much more pleasant for my mother from that point on. Still, in the back of her mind, she worried that where there was one snake, there might be others.

Source: http://deliveringreadingpassion.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/a-sense-of-dread/

My mother proved that her love for her grandsons outweighed her snake phobia when she purchased a copy of “Verdi,” by Jannell Cannon. In case you don’t know, Verdi was a young python who didn’t want to grow up to be big and green. He preferred being yellow and having sporty stripes. Ms. Cannon lives in the same area of California as my mother, so when the author had a book signing, my mother had her sign a book for Buddhaboy and Skimbleshanks, then mailed them the book.

As the boys grew, my mother would send them funny comics, the magazine sent to members of the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, and pictures she thought they might like to see. Among those pictures have been images of snakes. Want to know what a grandmother’s love is like? It’s when a woman with a terrible fear of snakes sends pictures of them to her grandsons, just because she knows that the boys will love them.

Gray hair and wrinkles

No parent wants to misplace her kid while out in public. If you’ve ever been through the experience, you might want to skip right over this. If you’ve never had this experience … you might want to avoid reading this, too.

I was in the market for a new refrigerator so I headed over to the Sears scratch and dent warehouse. This is where, as you might have guessed, all the appliances with cosmetic problems go to be sold. Would I like to have pristine appliances? Sure. However, I am realistic that everything we bring into our house will end up with a ding or a scrape in no time at all. With that in mind, I see no point in spending twice as much for the same washer, dryer, or fridge. The way I look at it, my distress will be greater by a factor of two if I pay full price and end up scratching it the first day it takes up residence here.

So, with both of my boys in tow, I walked into the warehouse. Matthew was about 5, and Elliot was about 2. Elliot had brought a book along, as usual, and Matthew was most likely carrying some sort of plastic creature in his hand or in a pocket.

Appliance shopping is boring in the best of times. With two little ones tagging along, I had to cope with their boredom, too.

Up and down the aisles we went, checking out the fridges. I also checked out the patrons. One guy looked like a biker, with his leathers, facial hair, and tattoos.

After a while, I checked on the boys. Make that “boy,” singular. Matthew was right beside me. Where was Elliot? I called for him. No answer. I walked to the end of the aisle and looked down the previous one and the next one. No Elliot. I called for him again, this time in a louder voice. No answer.

It came to me then where I was: in a warehouse filed with about a hundred refrigerators. I did the math. One 2-year-old plus 100 refrigerators equaled at least 100 places for him to hide … and suffocate.

I ran to the nearest refrigerator and snatched open the door. No Elliot. I slammed the door and ran to the next one. I snapped at Matthew to start doing the same, just as quickly as he could. He stepped up to the job like a trouper.

The whole while I was calling out for Elliot. Open. Slam. “Elliot!” Open. Slam. “Elliot!”

The biker guy glanced over at me and asked if anything was wrong.

“My 2-year-old son is missing. Oh, my god…”

“What’s his name?”

“Elliot. Oh, my god…”

The three of us searched and searched. A salesman came up to the biker and asked what the problem was. Soon the salesman was running around looking.

At this point I had enough adrenaline in my system to rip the doors off the refrigerators. The Hulk had nothing on me, a mom on the hairy edge of panic.

“Ma’am? Ma’am!”

A man’s voice slowly penetrated my pinpoint focus on the rows of refrigerators.

“What?!”

“Is your son’s name Elliot?”

“Yes!”

“Here he is.” The salesman was standing at the end of a row of stoves. They’d arranged them so that they were back to back. There was a gap at the bottom just the right size for a 2-year-old to crawl into. If he had a book with him, it would be the perfect place for him to kick back and read.

I ran over and skidded around the corner. And there he was. Elliot was sitting in between the two stoves at the end of the row, his book open in his lap.

“Honey,” I said in what I hoped was a calm voice. “Can you come out of there, please?”

He closed his book, crawled out, and stood up, looking around at all the grownups looking down at him.

Frankly, I was torn between throttling him and hugging him. I opted for the latter and burst into tears. I wrapped my arms around him and just knelt there on the hard cement floor, shaking from the amount of adrenaline pumping through my body and the sobs that kept escaping.

“Why are you crying, mommy?”

“Oh, honey. I thought you were lost, and it frightened me.” Matthew was standing behind me. “It frightened your brother, too.”

“I was right here, reading.”

“I know that now, honey.” I pulled back and held him by the shoulders. “Look, Elliot. If I call you, you must answer me. You have to. You just have to.”

“I guess I didn’t hear you.”

“Yeah, I guess you didn’t,” I mopped my face with my sleeve. My hands were shaking so badly I probably would have poked my own eye out if I’d tried using my hands.

I stood up and held Elliot’s hand, looked to make sure that Matthew was with us, and left the warehouse. The boys were fine. I felt physically ill as I walked to the car. I was shaky and soaked with sweat. Once we were in the car, I called Ed to tell him what had happened. While he sympathized to an extent, his reaction was more along the lines of, “the little dickens!” than, “oh, god! Are you all right?!” I suppose that it was a case of “you had to be there.” If he had been, maybe that third set of eyes would have spotted Elliot and prevented the panic … but maybe not.

My mother went through the same, “where’s Elliot?” scenario. She was shopping at Costco, and Elliot was misbehaving. Before she knew what had happened, Elliot had vanished. While she, too, was in a panic, my mother immediately went to the exit and told an employee that her grandchild was missing. Via walkie-talkie, word was passed among the employees, and no one was allowed into or out of Costco while the search was on.

Elliot was found, safe and sound. He’d hidden because he was afraid grandma was going to spank him. All he got was a fierce hug from her and a warning from her never to hide like that again.

When I was a child, it always struck me that grownups looked so tired and wrinkly, and their hair was either gray or was going gray. I just didn’t understand then what it was that made them that way.

Thanks to experiences like misplacing my child in a refrigerator warehouse, I now know exactly why grownups look so haggard.