A week ago, I was coming out of a restaurant with a companion, when I noticed that my companion had a flat tire. “You are bad luck!”, I was told. More prophetic words were never spoken….
That evening going home, the van was shaking and shimmying like you wouldn’t believe. Then, BAM! A blowout! And wouldn’t you know it, it was the spare that I had put on last month when I had the last blowout. What is even odder, is that this blowout occurred at just about the same location as the last, except that I was heading away from Tulsa instead of towards it. Of course, having learned from the previous adventure with a temperamental jack, I had since bought a $50 heavy duty shop jack, so this time changing the tire was a breeze….
Friday, I bought a new tire, and put it on the van. (The spare spare I bought for $20 at a used tire place and it needs to be filled about once a week with air….) I went to pick up the kiddos from school, no problems…After we got home and got the younger ones settled in, I ahd to take my eldest to the homecoming game, and, as usual, we were in a bit of a time crunch. We got into the van, and it cranked…but it wouldn’t start! (And it is still parked in my driveway, unmoveable, as I no longer have my mechanics tools, as they were stolen when the car they were in the trunk of was stolen from in front of my house when I lived in Little Rock back in 1998…) We climbed into the other van, and somehow managed to get there on time….
Sunday night, I am walking by the other van. Hmm, that rear tire looks a bit low. I get out the air gage, and yes, indeedy, it is flat. Lucky that I have that slick shop jack! Presto chango, the spare is now on the other van. (And the flat tire is still in the back, waiting to be fixed…..) Okay, we are done, right? That is three bad things. Wrong!
Monday morning, I get a call from the wife.
“I’ve got bad news.”
“The van doesn’t work?”
“No.”
“One of the kids is sick.”
“No.”
“You lost your job.”
“No.”
“I got into an accident with the van.”
“Oh crap, now we are down two vehicles!” (which leaves only one. Not good , given that we work in opposite directions.)
“No, it still runs, but it looks bad. In fact, it runs better than it has in a while!”
(Apparantly, a car two cars in front of her cut off the car in front of her, who slammed on the brakes. Given that I have scheduled the van for a brake job next month, it’s brakes aren’t the best in the world, and she didn’t have time to stop completely.)
As if that wasn’t enough for a Monday….
Two hours later, another panicked phone call.
“There was a snake in the shower! It was about two inches from my head!’
“What did you do?”
“Well, I didn’t want to startle it, so I left the shower running while I went to the kitchen and got the barbeque tongs and a jar. It is in a jar now.”
“You didn’t get water all over the bathroom floor when you got out of the shower, did you?”
Not exactly a smart thing to say to someone who had an unwelcome visitor in the shower!
On Tuesday, I took George the snake with me to work in the hopes of finding someone who could help identify it. (My wife thought it might be a copperhead, but I wanted to make sure.) At the suggestion of several coworkers, I took it out to the OSU Extension. All they could tell me was that it was a snake, and an aggressive one at that. But, they suggested the Nature Center. (“They have a lot of snake people there!”) So, I went out there, and yes, they are snake people. The nice lady commented that it was a “gorgeous” snake, and we proceeded to go to the official snake book. Having done some Internet research earlier that morning, I suggested it might be a juvenile black rat snake, which, according to the post I read, are often confused with copperheads. Voila! That is what it was! One of the herpatologists mentioned how the juvenile rat snake likes to mimic rattlesnakes to make itself look tougher. (The similarities to juvenile boys in trying to puff oneself up is uncanny!) The snake people asked if they could keep George; he found a nice home in Tulsa!
Later that evening, my daughter (the one who was bitten by the rattlesnake) came out the back door and told me not to come back in the front door I had just gone out a brief moment ago. I thought it was because she was afraid the cats might get out, but alas, we found George’s brother Fred– who was stuck in the doorjamb. When I opened the screen, Fred took the opportunity to slither half-way out before it closed on him, so his head was outside, and his tail was inside, and he was a source of great amusement to the cats. Armed with the knowledge that Fred was a good snake, I gingerly opened the screen door, picked up Fred with the tongs, and helped escort him onto the porch.
