Tale of the Snake (part 2)

The tale of the snake (part 2)

A few days after the appearance of the snake, My Man and I were sitting on the patio enjoying a drink in the summer evening air. I noticed something with strange markings poking out of the snake-hole, and asked MM to take a look, as his eyes are much better than mine.

He looked over the railing, and then asked me for a flashlight. As I was rummaging for it in the house, he said, “Bring the flashlight now!” I asked if the snake had stuck its head back out. He said, “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a snake. Snakes don’t have claws like that.”

Claws? I got two flashlights so he could choose the better of the two. I had to get a look at this!

Sure enough, there were two (relatively) big pincher claws sticking out of the hole.

I called my brother, Mr. Wild Kingdom himself, for his expertise. Of course, he wasn’t home. So I called the next-best person…my dad. After a brief discussion of the claws, with me on the phone with Dad and MM with the flashlight trained on the critter, Dad and MM independently came to the conclusion that it was a crawdad. I hung up so that I could look at it, and sure enough, I saw one of the claws reach up and grab a gnat for dinner. I didn’t think my backyard was wet enough for a crawdad, but I guess it’s swampier than I thought.

I asked MM if we should keep it and raise it into a lobster, but he said that when he and his sister tried it, their crawdad didn’t live out the week.

Just then the phone rang, and Dad said, “Laurel, I’ve figured out what your man-eating monster is. It’s Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Those claws are just a disguise. He’s pretty slick.” Of course, I’d had a couple, but I laughed till tears rolled down my face.

MM and I poured water down the hole to try and chase him away, but I noticed a couple of days ago that he was back. He’s been back every night. So now I guess I have two pets: a cat named Jasmine and a crawdaddy named Saddam.