So, while planning my mom's funeral with my dad and my brothers, I recieved a phone call. It was from my aunt and uncle who were holding down the fort at my parents house. They called to let me know that they had killed a large copperhead in my parents backyard.
"That's not good", I said. They wanted to know what to do with it. I thought for a minute..."*sigh*...I don't know, whatever you think is best, I guess." I am all for pawning that sort of job on someone else. I don't know a lot about snake killin' and removal, that's generally not my department. Lloyd is Chief Officer of Pest Services (COPS), I am simply the dispatcher. So, I get back to their house and am met by uncle, RM, at the door. He looks at me very solemnly and tells me that he placed the dead snake in a Hefty Black Garbage Bag, and then put it underneath the lid of my dad's beloved Weber Grill.
"Huh." (all I could think to say)...I am sure my eyes bugged out a little. "Well, that's a good spot I guess." He said that he didn't think putting it in the kitchen garbage can seemed like a good idea as we were going to have people in and out for the next few days, and the smell might get a little rough. Not to mention, my dad's canine garbage pickers, Lula and Jackson might be tempted to dig through and and play with it during what would probably be an inappropriate time.
He thought about just tossing it over the fence. However, although my dad lives in what *I* consider the country, it actually is a neighborhood and I would imagine that it tends to make the neighbors a little pissy to see a large copperhead being flung over the top of the privacy fence for their own dog to pick up and proudly drag to the door. (Look what I brought for you mommy!)So, he felt the best choice was the Hefty Sack/Weber combination. He told *me* this to make sure that I would tell my dad at a later time, preferably before he used the grill. You can count on me.
Later that week, my dad invited all of us over to eat; I think we all needed the company. Of course, we accepted....even in our grief, you don't turn down barbecued ribs and chicken. When he told me he was going to be grilling...something brief sparked in my brain. Very...very brief. And then nothing.
So, we show up at his house at the appointed time and all the family was gathered. I know my dad like the back of my hand and I could see he was irritated and I asked what was wrong. This is the look I got:
This look says..."are you an idiot?". "Yeah, there is something wrong. I want to know if any of you know about (insert bad words here) snake being stuffed up in a trash bag in my grill??!"
Oh yeeeeaaaahhhh.....what do you know? Total Recall! I decided the better tactic would be to tell him that I had already told him about that. Didn't he remember? I was counting on the fact that he had been walking around in a fog just as much as I had, not to mention, he can be very forgetful at times.
He was like, "OH HELL NO, I would remember you telling me about a dayum snake up in my Weber!". Point taken...I believe he would have...he really loves his grill. So, I backtracked some and said that I had "thought" that I had told him, but I must have been mistaken, and I did apologize.
But I had to ask, you know: So...um, how bad was it? (lol!)..More importantly, how will this be affecting the ribs and chicken?
Again with the look from above...(because evidently I am an idiot), he says, "well, I went to open the grill to clean it and the smell knocked me back a few feet. I knew it was something dead, but I didn't know what it was, couldn't figure out how it had gotten inside a garbage bag AND ended up in my grill. So, I opened it up to discover a dayum rotting snake and about had a heart attack, thank-you-very-much!".
oooops. My bad. :)
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