"there's a snake in my boot"

Okay, in our case there's a snake in our library and that has me wide awake at 3:00 in the morning. Actually I might have been wide awake anyway considering I woke up at 2:00 A.M. because I couldn't sleep. It was then as I walked through the living room and approached the threshold of the library that I noticed our cat playing with something...something that appeared to be playing back or fighting for survival. So what do you do when you discover a snake in the house in the middle of the night? Well, if I were as courageous as my mom I would have thrown something on top of it and smashed it quick or in my mom's case captured it live and put it in an aquarium for the kids to be amazed by, but I'm not so courageous. I jumped on a chair and screamed for Sweetman and highschool man and woke everyone else up too because how dare they sleep with a snake in the house. Of course, while I insisted they turn the library upside down and slaughter the slithery creature the snake must have found himself a cozy spot to rest because he's nowhere to be found. Our solution? Lock the cat in the library with the snake and hopefully we will wake in the morning to a healthy cat resting next to the snake's carcass.

Every once in a while, I hear the cat scratching away at something and I feel no sympathy for the invader.

Snakes have been everywhere lately. I know Debbie at Deb's Everyday has had encounters with the little creatures lately too. One of my little guys dreamed about a king cobra on the same night I dreamed about some sort of viper (and I never credit any of those dreams with Sigmund Freud's twisted thinking) and another one of my little guys spotted a scarlet king snake at our back door the other day, very pretty, but still a snake. My mom has caught two corn snakes recently, yes, she caught them. She wanted the kids to see them...she's a very impressive woman. The creatures are just all over.

I really do enjoy nature, but not in my library.

For tonight, I think my daughter might have given up on sleeping on the floor, my little guys have decided to leave their Friday night slumber/movie hangout spot--the library, and everyone else is sleeping in portions of the house closed off to the library with towels blocking the doorways. But I am not sleeping, instead I keep hoping to hear more fuss from the cat, some sign of struggle for life and victory on the cat's part. How can the rest of them sleep with a snake in the house?