Snakes Alive!

Sundays are always great days to be lazy. Sleep late (we missed church today),watch lots of movies on the couch, veg out on junk food and just take it easy. Nothing exciting. Nope, that's not exactly the way the day played out here. We did laz around most of the day as it was so hot and humid and a big storm was moving in. We just sat around and waited on it. But late this pm, I was watching the wind start to blow in when I noticed that my flag was still up on the front porch. Now this is not just any flag, mind you. It's my Halloween flag that has been up since October. Why you ask? Well, I have tried several times to remove the pole from the holder, but everytime I did, it was stuck. I kept forgetting to ask Andy to help me get it down, but today when I saw the wind blowing it, I yelled for Andy to help. He did much to his regret. We both tugged real hard on it from both sides and it really seemed to be in there. Andy was barefooted and and standing right next to the brick steps going down the front porch. One more really good tug and the pole popped out, but down Andy went off the porch with it. Now, for those of you who know my husband, you know he is very athletic and agile. With momentum going down, he flew over most of the steps but never fell down, righting himself on the bottom step. Or maybe we should say his toe righted itself on the step! Momentum still intact, he is now jumping and running up the sidewalk in much pain. Almost as fast as he is going foward, suddenly he is stopped and coming back again. You see, he was just inches from stepping on a 4 foot rat snake sitting in the sun next to our front flower bed! WHOA!!!! I screamed, he yelled and headed back up the steps to the front porch. Now we noticed that his toe was bent up perpendicular at a 90 degree angle to his foot. I didn't know just what to look at.....his toe or the snake. I immediately thought we should get a shovel to kill the snake, but Andy was more concerned with his toe. I asked if he needed a trip to the ER and he said no, so I whipped down and jerked his toe out straight to get it back in line. A little yelp and we watched the big snake slither back into a hole in the wall of the flower bed. Andy's toe is all bandaged up tonight. Drew, my orthopedic rep son, thinks he needs a little pin put in it. But I have broken my toe twice now and both times I just pulled it back out and wrapped it up tight with surgical tape. That does the trick even though now my toe is very crooked and looks like someone ran over it with a car. Guess Andy's will be too. Now, I just need to take care of some moth balls and the snake tomorrow!