In his amazing, if not under-read masterpiece of a short story, “The Metamorphosis,” Franz Kafka writes… “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin (or insect, depending on the translation)…”
I, myself, awoke the other night…but not due to uneasy dreams or due to being transformed in my sleep in to a gigantic beetle, although I had had my usual nightly wine, but not enough to awake to feeling like a slug.
No, no. I was woken up to my husband shoving me in the shoulder yelling, “Oh my God! Do you hear that? Oh NO! Our air-conditioner EXPLODED! AHHHH!” and an ominous THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD sound, which continued until Big D turned off the air conditioning. Scary. And disturbing. What the eff was occurring just outside our bedroom window? Was somebody trying to get in? Trying to steal our A/C units? Were there the notorious copper thieves we’ve been hearing so much about, looming just outside our door?
“I’m going out there,” said Big Daddy with purpose. I opened one eye just long enough to ensure he was donning a pair of khaki shorts and NOT strutting out au naturel…I mean, we DO have neighbors, after all…and suppose other folks came out to investigate the ruckus? There’d be Big Daddy, bare-ass necked, in nothin’ but what the good Lord gave ‘im. Bless.
We have two “zones” in our home, which means we have two outdoor compressors. Big Daddy was trying to determine which compressor said HORRIBLE noise originated from. Shortly, he came back into the bedroom (I was still trying to sleep) to propose that when he “BANGS ON THE BEDROOM WINDOW,” I was to turn on the A/C to see which compressor was broken. I (am such a GREAT wife!) um…politely declined due to sleep.
that a belt had come loose, and was prepared to call the repairman in the morning. However, when I awoke (that morning to restful dreams…) I was actually chilled by the coolness of my room…I deduced the A/C was now, in fact, functional. So what was the AWFUL, thud, thud, thud…we heard last night…I knew there had been a rash of cooper thieves in the area…do we have copper in our air conditioners??? Was Big Daddy sent into danger (in his khaki shorts) as he rushed outside into the darkness after the strange sound last night?
“Did you notice the air works?” queried Big Daddy during his first morning phone call, “I found out what was wrong!”
“Ok, so what was it?” I asked, even though in my gut, I had already figured it out.
“Well, I carpooled today, so I had a little extra time. I walked around the side of the house to get the serial number, model number and brand of our units so I could tell the repair man what to bring. But…when I looked in the unit in the light of day I saw…”
Uhg.
“…a snake.”
“Dead, right?”
“Um…YEAH!”
“So…uh…what…uh…”
“Well then M showed up to drive me to work, so I recruited him to assist me in extraditing the snake.”
“What kind of snake was it?”
“Black with a white belly.”
Damn! That’s the kind of snake that EATS the bad snakes! DOUBLE Bless! AND, just when I thought the story couldn’t get any worse or disgusting…As if the fact that there was a friggin’ SNAKE mere INCHES from my PERSON (albeit behind the confines of the brick wall that separates inside from outside…) but now Big Daddy was about to take the gore-factor up a notch…
“OH, and uh…”
“And WHAT [Big Daddy]?”
He started to giggle like a 10-year-old boy who has accidentally stumbled upon Grandpa’s collection of “Playboys.”
“WHAT is it?!”
“Well…I tried to throw it into the “jungle” (our family word for the woods behind our house,) but it got hung up on a little scrub tree and it’s just kinda hangin’ there…but don’t worry, if you go out there, you can just THROW SOMETHING AT IT and it will fall down."
) was causing me such a dichotomy between curiousity and anxiety. Would I have to purchase a sign warning visitors that we have (gulp) a snake-infested jungle?! 
I couldn’t resist seeing it with my own eyes.
Again, as if I thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, I found the poor, pitiful snake hanging tangled from a scrub tree…COVERED IN BEES. Kind of makes me think twice before using our yummy, delicious and healthy local honey. God only knows how SNAKEY it may be. Ick.
I’m sorry for the snake, I really do love all living creatures. No, I did not “throw something at it,” I am relieved to report that “something” mercifully removed the little guy from the tree during the night (hawk? owl? pterodactyl?) and the A/C is fully functional in this 100 degree Southern heat. I’m still grossed out, but I’m sure in time, that, too, shall pass.
Even Pee-Wee saved the snakes from the burning pet store...would you? Click here.
4 comments:
Ack! That would freak me out.
My mom just saw a rattler out hiking and might need some sort of long-term therapy to get over the shock!
But be very happy that no damage was done. We're actually pricing out AC units because ours is on the fritz...not fun at all.
That picture was like the horror film of air conditioners. - but I am glad for you that your AC works.
At least he died in air-conditioned comfort. Heh.
OMG!!!! I'm like you with the snakes. Only good snake is one in a zoo or a dead one. I thought we left all those behind on the prairie!
Post a Comment