THE DAY MOMMY LOST HER MIND - PART III

It seemed that every time Paul left the country, when the kids were little, something went wrong.



There was the night a bird flew down into our fireplace where it proceeded to beat itself silly against the glass doors trying to get out. This, in turn, caused our cat to also lose her mind as she sat at the fireplace trying desperately to get in and "rescue" the bird. I do not even remember how that problem resolved itself.



There was the time a thunderstorm struck and our 63 inch square picture window blew out and shattered all over the front porch.



There was the time I spent the night in the emergency room with a vomiting toddler, which I will post about tomorrow, if you're lucky. And yes, during each of these adventures, Paul was out of the country.

Is it any wonder I am the way I am?

But this story is the one that tops them all. We shall call it: THE SNAKE.

Paul was in Columbia at the time, and we were in the process of deciding if we wanted to move to a smaller town and build a new house. The house we were living in at the time was a 75-year old bungalow that needed LOTS AND LOTS OF TLC when we moved in. We did a lot of fixing up in that house and made it quite charming, if I do say so myself.

The only thing we couldn't fix up was the basement. Most basements in the houses in that part of town were basically dark damp caves with laundry hook-ups. Since the laundry was down there, I had to spend a lot of time in the dark damp cave.

One night after the kids were in bed, I was in the basement doing laundry and as I set a basket down on the floor a snake slithered past me and behind the machines.

A SNAKE SLITHERED PAST MY FEET IN MY VERY OWN LAUNDRY AREA.

I, of course, instantly scampered up the stairs and slammed the basement door. I remember literally being unable to catch my breath.

I had learned to handle a lot during this phase of our lives, but snakes? Snakes were definitely not part of the deal. So I called our bachelor friend, Scott, who lived 20 minutes away and asked him to please come over and try to catch this snake. I didn't even have to beg because Scott was such a sweetie, he'd do anything for us. In the mean time I stuffed towels along the bottom of the basement door so the snake couldn't slither into my kitchen.

I had no intention WHATSOEVER of doing laundry again until Scott proved to me that snake was gone. When Scott arrived I reluctantly took him to the basement and showed him where the snake had slithered to. I also told him it was probably about 4 feet long. Seriously I remember it being that long. Paul, of course, likes to say it was probably about 8 inches long, but what would he know? He was out of the country. And does it REALLY matter how long it was? It was a snake. In my basement.

I quickly left Scott to his search and waited in the kitchen for him to bring me the snake's dead body. I wanted proof that the snake was DEAD. I wanted to watch him throw the DEAD body of that snake into a garbage can somewhere outside. He couldn't find the snake. But in his effort to comfort me, he said "I wouldn't worry about it, Heidi. She's probably down there having her babies."

Nice.

I did not do laundry all week. I actually went to Wal-Mart and bought new clothes for my children rather than have to go to that basement and deal with the snake. And her babies.

Now, I had learned long before this episode not to call Paul with everything that went wrong while he was gone. I mean, what was he going to do about it from another continent? I usually saved my adventure tales for when he got home. But this time was different. I knew he was in Columbia. I knew there was nothing he could do about the snake in our basement. But by golly, he was going to hear about it. I could handle a broken window. I could handle a bird beating itself to death in my fire place. I could even handle a night in the emergency room with a sick toddler. But I had no intention of keeping the snake story to myself until he got home.

So he got the call. And during that call I basically said "If you want to find me at home with your children when you return from this trip; if you have any hopes of a happy family life while you travel for your career; if you have any hopes of sleeping beside me ever again - I suggest you give serious thought to getting me out of this house. Because I will NOT deal with snakes in my basement."

Something like that. Because I believe in presenting problems in a calm, clear, non-confrontational manner. I believe in compromise, not ultimatums.

The following week we signed the contract to build our new house.