Yesterday morning, as I was walking to get the morning paper on my lawn (yes, I still subscribe to a daily newspaper…so sue me), I heard a ear shattering scream come from my next door neighbor’s house. It was quite obviously a woman’s scream. Concerned, I ran over to see what was wrong. My neighbor was in hysterics, jumping around like she had red ants crawling up legs. I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. She kept pointing to her car. I looked inside the car and saw what appeared to be a 2-foot black snake coiled up on the floorboard of the passenger-side seat. I was flabbergasted. How the hell did the snake get in her car in the first place? Not knowing a venomous snake from the non-venomous kind, my rule of thumb has always been to kill and ask questions later. But, this snake did not seem in the least bit disturbed by all the commotion (I guess because they don’t have ears?).

Very reluctantly, I opened the driver-side door and the snake still had not made any actions as if it wanted to strike. I honestly thought it would slither under the seat. But, it didn’t do it. Instead, it very calmly came out of the car on its own. My neighbor was screaming for me to kill it! But, the snake wasn’t acting belligerent toward us. It went away into the drainage ditch not far away. Normally, I probably would have killed the snake. If it had made an attempt to strike, I would hit it with the shovel I had in hand. But, it was rather sedate and just went on about it’s snake business.

We have had a lot of rain this year. When that happens, snakes usually look for higher ground. I’ve seen two in my backyard this summer. There are reports all over town of snakes appearing in record numbers in yards, gardens, roadways, driveways, etc. If Tropical Storm Fay makes its way here (as some forecasts are predicting), I expect even more snakes will come up into people’s yards. The forecast is we could get up from six to nine inches of rain from this storm if it comes up this way.

Since that encounter with the snake in my neighbor’s car, I have since found that the snake was a Black Rat Snake, non-venomous variety. They do hang around heavily wooded areas looking for mice and, of course, rats. So, I feel I did the right thing by not killing the snake. Now, all I have to do is convince my crazy-ass neighbor.

And we still don’t know how the snake got in her car.