A Fairy Tale (of sorts)

Once Upon a Time there was a beautiful princess who lived in a great big castle in a far away kingdom.

(Ok, so that princess was me and the castle was a cheap and poorly managed apartment complex.  But back to the story...)



One day the princess was in her castle getting ready to leave to the royal academy of princesses for her royal princess exam, when a sudden commotion in the royal kitchen caught her attention.

T'was the royal mutt barking at it's royal (and solid gold, naturally) food bowl.

"Tis strange," thought the princess, "usually the royal mutt devours it's royal food, not barks at it."

The princess, being ever so clever and brave, decided to see what the fuss was about.

BEHOLD! An evil dragon-serpent-thing had stolen into the castle and was going to devour the princess and her royal companion animals!!!!



.....Okay, you guys, I think you're missing the point of the story.  A baby copperhead was in my house.  A COPPERHEAD.  IN MY HOUSE.  OH MY GOD.

At this point, my cat (who isn't exactly brilliant) came to investigate.  I freaked out and screamed NOOOOOOOOO at the top of my lungs and managed to swoop both the dog and the cat up in one arm.  I threw them in my bedroom and shut the door.  Then I went to face the MIGHTY DRAGON (aka the snake) which then promptly proceeded to dart under my roommate's closed bedroom door.

I jumped into the nearest stool (because snakes can't climb...right?  Please tell me snakes can't climb) and called the apartment management office.  They promised to send someone immediately.

Half an hour later, my knight in shining armor (aka, a tiny wizened old man with a limp and a hacking cough) came to the door.  I let him in and showed him the bedroom the snake was in.  We then proceeded to have this conversation:

Me: It went in there!
Old Man: I don't see anything.
Me: It's in there! I saw it!  Maybe it's under the bed or something?
Old Man: Welp, it'll come out eventually, I guess.  Nothing I can do now.  Call me when you find it again.

Aaaaaaand he left.

He left me alone with the snake.

THE POISONOUS SNAKE!

At that point, I did what any sane person would do:  I jumped back in my stool.

I realized at this point, I was not going to make it to my class that day, I emailed the teacher and told them "I'm very sorry, but there's a poisonous snake in my house and I can't leave the animals alone with it or they will die and that would be pretty tragic.  I mean, the dog isn't even mine, it's my roommate's"

The teacher never replied.  Pretty sure he didn't believe me. (And now that I've had experience teaching myself, I probably wouldn't believe me either.) But that wasn't important at the moment.

Next, I called my friend, all around bad-ass and animal whisperer, Lindi.

Lindi, brave soul that she is, came straight over to slay the beast (she even missed class for me.  She is THE BEST)

We spent an hour tearing apart my roommate's bedroom trying to find the evil creature and banish it to the outdoors, but alas, our hopes of victory began to fade after much cursing and gnashing of teeth and lifting of bed covers. I resigned myself to living on the kitchen stool.

As we stood among the wreckage, upon a pile of dirty laundry, the heavens opened and a light beamed down on us--or Lindi turned on the closet light, my memories are a little fuzzy--and knowledge came from the heavens.

We scrabbled down the pile of dirty laundry and began to look through it.  There, on the bottom, curled as though ready to strike, was the snake!

Lindi had prepared a big pot lid as a shield to protect us against the dangerous fanged menace.  As soon as the snake was uncovered, she slammed the pot lid down upon it.  It's reckoning had come!

After several minutes of heavy breathing and paranoid laughter, we lifted up the lid to see what foul terror the horrible beast was planning next.

It was then that we noticed the snake was oddly flat and still.  It was smushed as though someone had been unknowingly standing upon it for several minutes.  (It was us, we were standing on top of it THE WHOLE TIME YOU GUYS).

With the monster vanquished, the beautiful princesses decided the only logical and heroic thing to do was to take pictures of the lifeless foe and then throw it outside as far as possible.  The two brave and beautiful warriors decided to eat ice cream to commemorate their battle.



THE END 

Vanquished Foe (much smaller than he looks here.  That was my kitchen counter)