vituperation

I have committed a terrible crime against nature.

That copperhead I killed in the back yard last Saturday? Wasn’t.

My initial red flag was based on the fact that I couldn’t find any copperhead pictures that looked enough like what I killed. Similar markings, but not close enough to explain away the differences by blaming it on variations within the species. Second, the triangular wedge of a pit viper’s head is far more dramatic than the head of what was in the yard. Then there were the eyes, something I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment. Our snake had round pupils:

North American pit vipers have elliptical pupils, like cats. In addition to the round pupils you see above, note there’s no pit as there is in the picture linked in the previous sentence.

To confirm my suspicions (interestingly, everyone around here who saw the pictures thought it was a copperhead, too) I contacted a snake dealer and the Center for North American Herpetology. They both agreed immediately on what was in the yard: a midland watersnake, not a copperhead.

I killed an innocent snake, in a most gruesome and protracted manner, by chopping it to death with a rusty garden implement.

To my credit: not only is this snake confused with copperheads all the time (probably by people too busy trying to kill them to ID them properly), but the one in our yard was missing a long chunk from the end of his tail –

– making him look even more like a thick, stocky pit viper. The snake dealer thought this snake had probably tangled up with another animal at some point and lost the piece of tail.

On the good side, midland watersnakes are fairly aggressive and known to bite people and pets when they get too close. So, even though killing a non-venomous snake kind of sucks, at least I killed a mean one and not something like a garter snake.

I suspect, based on his amazing abilities as a master of disguise, that he was sent to spy on me for the snake I briefly kidnapped a couple of weeks ago.

And for those of you who are thinking the only good snake is a dead snake, you’re just wrong.

"Good crap!" I said, pulling the cardboard barrier we keep outside the door to the foster cat room around me. The mother cat freaks out when she sees any of our cats, so I devised a sort of airlock outside the door with a giant moving box. You step up close to the door, pull the edges around you, and it creates a little closetlike room around you. Then, when mama cat runs out when you open the door, she’s stuck in the airlock.

Yes, I am a damn genius. I already know it.

"What?" Robyn called. She was already in the room, playing with the kittens.

"The smell. It’s like day-old cat ass."

Six cats can produce a mighty big stank when they set their little minds to it.

"I just cleaned, how can you smell anything? I can’t smell anything!"

You can’t smell it because you’re stewing in it, I thought, but said nothing.

I went in and we played with the kittens for a few minutes.

When it was time to go, I went out first, back into the airlock. I waited there while Robyn finished up, gathering up the poo-baggie and saying good night to all the cats. And I farted, a big fruity one, one of the best results of the red beans and rice I’d had earlier in the day for lunch.

Robyn came out of the cat room into the airlock and pulled the door closed behind her.

"Oh yeah," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I see what you mean. It does smell kind of poopy over here by the door."

"Told you," I said, and hid a smile.

I spent five minutes looking for minced garlic in the produce section of Publix this morning. Finally, I gave up on finding it — it wasn’t where I remembered it, and I couldn’t see it anywhere — and decided to ask for help.

"Excuse me," I said, looking over the tomatoes at the young man filling a bin with onions some six feet away. He stopped what he was doing. "You guys used to have big jars of minced garlic over there–"

I pointed.

"–but I can’t find them today. I’ve looked everywhere."

Without speaking, he raised his arm and pointed over the tomatoes, down slightly to my right.

"Please tell me they’re not right in front of me," I said, looking him in the eye instead of following his hand.

He nodded.

I looked down.

The garlic was right in front of me.

I looked up. He was smiling.

"It’s still early," he said.

"Too early," I agreed, and picked up a jar.

I hate it when I do things like that.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go try to catch a rattlesnake for an experiment.