I was visiting with Uncle Catfish this weekend, trading lies and truths and not caring much which was which. Somehow, we got on the topic of snakes.
As tales with age often do, each one was elevated a little over the one before it until Uncle Catfish told one that closed the subject. It went like this.
Back in his early years, Uncle Catfish worked as a Park Ranger in the South where many creatures waited for the cooler evening air before roaming. Among these creatures were the rattlesnakes.
Apparently, campers at the park didn’t much like walking up on rattlers during their evening stroll so one of the Park Ranger’s duties was collecting snakes before heading home each night. Also, being a park, the policy was to capture the snakes and release them in the wilds.
Uncle Catfish diligently followed the rules and corralled quite a few snakes. He carried a box designed for snakes in his vehicle and all went well until one night when he found a particularly large rattlesnake. Even discounted for the growth of snakes during the years after the episode, this was a big one.
As Uncle Catfish lifted the rattler to put it in the box, it became evident the snake wasn’t going to fit. Long and hefty, there was simply too much snake or too little box. Looking in his vehicle, Uncle Catfish found a cardboard box and some duct tape and quickly constructed a new snake box. After all, you can do anything with duct tape even if you can’t do it well.
Running late into the evening, Uncle Catfish took the snake home with him to release it the next day. Admiring how well he had taped the box, Uncle Catfish set it on the kitchen table and went to bed.
The next morning, he came out to inspect the box and found the tape had held. Unfortunately, the cardboard had not. The rattler had simply punched a hole through the board and was now someplace in the house. A quick tour produced no rattlesnake.
Logic told him that if the snake could find its way out of the box, it could find its way out of the house. Unfortunately, there were no holes in the walls to confirm the rattler’s exit.
Uncle Catfish tried to sleep the next few nights but went to bed thinking of rattlesnakes. In his mind, it could be under the bed, in a closet, or behind the nightstand. The anxiety continued to get worse until he finally decided to move out.
Upon his exit, he left a note on the table telling anyone who moved in that there might be a five-foot-long rattler somewhere in the house. That never became a problem, however, as the house was never again occupied.
At this point, we had no better snake stories, so we changed the subject to the virtues of duct tape.
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Jim Mize has two award-winning books of humor and nostalgia for outdoorsmen. For more information on his books, go to A Creek Trickles Through It . You can find more entertaining outdoors reading at Sporting Classics Store.
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