Snakes alive!

So I get home today and find a large box by my door. It turns out that a liberal neighbor's kids caught a large garter snake in a net, only to have the snake twist round and round and round until it was thoroughly enmeshed in the net and unable to be removed from it. Their dad cut some of the net away, but he was unable to get the tight strands away from the snake for the simple reason that by this time, it was one seriously pissed off snake and he was scared of it. So they did what any liberal would do--they passed the problem that they created on to someone else...in this case, me.

When I opened the box, I found a large, angry garter snake that was closer to three feet long than two.He had sections of net wrapped very tightly around himself in three spots on his body, and he's apparently had enough of being messed with because even with the netting restraining him, he was lunging at me with his little mouth gaping open. In fact, he was so aggressive that I had to look twice to make extra sure that he wasn't a juvenile rattler.

Sighing, I drew my work knife and used the back of the blade to pin the snake's neck. Then I grabbed just behind the head so that it couldn't bite me and picked it up.

The snake was still very, very mad judging by it's attempts to twist and contort itself around. But alas, there was way too much net on the snake, and it was nylon line net that I knew would not just drop off if the creature was left alone. So, holding onto it's neck, I began to slice the netting one thread at a time.

It wasn't easy, because the snake kept twisting, and some of the threads were so tight that they were actually cutting into it's body, but after nearly twenty minutes, I finally cut the last cord and was able to pull the last piece of nylon away from the snake. The snake was still pretty mad, though--it was doing it's reptile best to wrap around my arm and/or get it's mouth on me.

"Chill, Brer' snake," I told it. "You gonna be ok now. You're free of the net, and you're even welcome to come live over here away from those liberals."
So saying, I found a nice spot in my rock garden a fair bit away from Lagniappe's run and set the snake down. I figured that as soon as I let go, it was going to jet off, butit surprised me by only moving a short distance away and then stopping and turning it's head back to look at me for a few seconds. It was almost as if the snake was giving me a nod and saying thanks. Then it calmly slithered off between a couple of large rocks, hopefully to take up residence. More snakes equal less mice and other pets.

So can we call that my good deed for the day? And was it good enough to make up for all of the bad names I called the idiot drivers that I was cussing out on the way home tonight?My new snake says yes.