Snakes happen....

So there I was yesterday evening.... getting canned Fancy Feast ready for the cats' dinners and bringing one of the bowls into the garage for Mickey so I could get him in there for the night.  Before I closed up the garage door, I looked around to make sure the orange cat wasn't in there, or Gatsby, or anything else that shouldn't be inside before the door is shut.

And there it was... in front of one of the big doors... a small snake all curled up just as nice as you please. I didn't scream because it was just a green and black ribbon snake, and I didn't want to scare it away, figuring it may slither underneath my car and (is this possible?) somehow get into my car.  I backed away from the snake and then ran into the house and up the stairs and told my husband that I needed him to get rid of that snake.

I don't know what I would have done had he not been home... I guess I could have dropped a brick on top of the snake, but that would have been a messy little ending. And what if my aim wasn't quite right?  I know it's "just" a ribbon snake, but still, a snake is a snake and I have enough nightmares about the wildlife and slithering-life out here in the hills.

With all small garden snakes, my husband's method is to capture the snake in a plastic container and then drive it two miles up the road and release it in the empty field by the main highway.  I knew he would want a plastic container but in my haste to get it to him, I grabbed one that didn't have a cover. So my husband improvised, putting a thin piece of cardboard on top of the container, and he had to hold his hand on top of the cardboard to keep the snake from getting out of the plastic.

My husband told me to get his car keys, which I did... but when I was handing him the keys, he said "You drive, I'll hold this."

Pardon me?  "You want me to drive? While you hold that thing next to me in the car? No way."
 "Well, you hold this and I'll drive,"  he said.  Pardon me?

I came back into the house and found another plastic container with a tight-fitting lid.... went outside and gave that to my husband, and he transferred the snake from one container to the other, snapping the lid down tight, while I watched from the back porch.  "Want to come for the ride?"   No way.

So off went both my husband and the plastic-contained snake. When the car came back up the driveway, my husband was smiling and holding up the empty container.  He told me to save the container for the next time.

"You want me to put that in my kitchen?"   I suggested to my husband that he keep that container in the garage from now on, to be ready for the next little adventure. And I know now from experience that it's only a matter of time till the next slithering thing finds its way into that garage.

And all I want to know right now is... could it ever be possible for a snake to find its way into my car as it's parked in the garage.

"Anything is possible," said my husband when I asked him that question.

Men.  Would it have been so hard for that man to say: "Of course not.... a snake could not  penetrate the undercarriage of that vehicle and find its way into the interior of your car."