The Snake and the Ninja
It was a Monday morning, Labor Day to be exact, at about
8:30am when my phone rang. I was in bed
having already woken up but just dozing off again. My son Ted on the other end of the phone said
he was coming by to pick me up. He was
on a mission. A copperhead snake removal
mission. My daughter-in-law, Danielle,
my oldest son’s wife, had called him to say a large copperhead was in her
garage. It was the first day of dove
season and her husband had gone hunting an hour and a half away. Well, for Ted this was no new task. Just like his dad before him, he had already
been deemed the guy to call in his own neighborhood when someone encountered a
snake on their property. If it was a “good”
snake, it was relocated, but if it was a venomous snake it was killed. When he drove up in my driveway, I proceeded
to offer him any of my “tools of mass destruction”. His choice was a pointed shovel. By now, he had had time to think about it, and
his nerves were starting to get to him.
It is a duty he is willing to do, but not his favorite activity. In the back seat was my 5-year-old grandson
dressed appropriately in his head-to-toe black Ninja costume with plastic sword,
ready for battle. He was excited to be
with his dad on this adventurous excursion.
After a short 3-mile drive, we arrived at my son’s home
where the snake had invaded the garage.
It was coiled up under a wire shelving rack. It was big and dangerous. The first step in the attack was to get it
out from under the rack. Ted chose a golf
club (not sure the choice of club, lol) to reach in and pull the snake out. It was agitated by now and struck a few times
at the club. I was videotaping the event,
and at that point, the camera went into a wild spiral, filming the ground, the
sky and Grayson running away! Granted
we were not close to Ted; we were standing at the edge of the garage door. We were rubber necking the event. When the snake was out, Ted immediately chopped
it behind the head with a swift chop of the shovel’s blade. It took 3 swift chops to finally dismember
the snake and still it moved involuntarily.
The head still seemed “alive” as did the body, even though they were in
two parts. It was approximately 2-3 feet
long and looked like it was well fed.
Blood ran from the snake’s body, and it looked like a crime scene. Ted cautiously took the head and body separately
and disposed of them near the railroad tracks behind the house. All the while Grayson was proclaiming “Can I
just say, I don’t like this!”. The
garage was safe again. It is important
to rid your property of a venomous snake when your daughter is 2 years old, and
the snake is coiled beneath where the bubbles are stored. I am just thankful that nobody was harmed in
the making of this adventure. Ted is the
hero with the help of his trusty sidekick, Ninja warrior Grayson!
Tammy Harvey 9/2/2025
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