Whither Does It Slither?

AS A JOURNALIST trained never to bury the lede, there is a snake in my house. It’s a distressing creature that slithers away into parts unknown when you try to capture it. The presence of this snake is deeply disturbing. Yet no matter how close I come to grabbing it — even with Grill Pro’s extended-length barbecue tongs (18 inches is as close as I’m going to get) — it always gets away, only to appear again in a different location.

It’s my fault, of course. Years ago, I allowed the creature into my house as a show of support for a granddaughter to whom all life is sacred. The Supreme Court also believes that all life is sacred, depending on which state you live in. But even if I took the reptile across state lines, I’d have to catch it first (with the above barbecue tongs), which I haven’t.

My granddaughter had found the snake in our yard and placed it — using her bare hands — into a Mason jar she had lovingly prepared with native foliage and water. My pride in her respect for animals ended, however, when she suggested poking holes in the lid, thus defiling a treasured household object. (She was too young to appreciate how a well-fitting lid seals in flavor.) So, I suggested covering it with aluminum foil and poking holes in that. What’s the worst that could happen? An hour later we found out: no snake, and a distraught and — unfairly, in my view — accusatory granddaughter.

Over time we forgot about this snake and assumed it had found its way to the outside world, or succumbed peacefully in a dark corner, politely decaying without odor.

Wrong on both counts.

I was informed of this while sitting quietly in my bedroom reading chair. My spouse casually put down her New Yorker magazine and said, almost as an aside, “Oh, by the way, there’s a snake in the basement.”

My reply was swift and included invoking the name of the Risen Lord with considerable emphasis on the first syllable. I immediately regretted this sacrilege and pledged to say 12 rosaries, two Our Fathers, and go to confession. (Note to self: Become Catholic.)

It turns out that cleaning the basement — which we do without fail every decade — stirs up more than dust. But I had stepped away at the time and did not witness the snake’s reappearance. (I was at the hardware store, and it’s hard not to linger around Lowe’s new outdoor grills, which would go perfectly with my barbecue tongs.)

“Where was it?” I demanded, stepping down from the chair upon which I had bravely leapt. “In the basement,” she added redundantly, pushing this column’s word count dangerously close to its absurd limit of 630 words. “I saw it curled up behind the dehumidifier and it slithered away.”

The absence of the usual insects in our basement — which realtors would charitably describe as “unimproved” — suddenly made sense. But what happens when this particular food source runs out? Will a hungry snake then crave human flesh?! Can it crawl up steps?! Does it prefer the warmth of an adjacent human body when it sleeps?!

I grasped the import of this news with a deep sense of anxiety, an anxiety shared by, coincidentally, millions of people living under autocratic regimes, although I don’t know why I just thought of that. And I began to dread what the future may hold with this unchecked creature in my life.

And speaking of fighting back against autocracy, will barbecue tongs be enough? Probably not. But I’m still keeping them at my bedside.