Monday, August 3, 2009

Hsssssssssssssssssss


NOTICE-THIS IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TONGUE-IN-CHEEK (the ones in your cabeza) BLOG.

Famous quotes:
Cleopatra, to no one in particular, after the suicide of Marc Anthony - "Keep your hands off my asp."

The bust is of Cleopatra, at the Altes Museum Berlin (Berliner Museumsinsel).
Quite a hot dish, eh?

Oh yeah and while I'm thinking about it, and I can't think of any other way to work it in...and it has not a nada to do with this post...how about a hand for our new friend, meandonnajean.

I usually don't post stories of a personal nature, except a mention now and again of my wife, daughters, brother, mother-in-law, cousins, aunts, uncles, people I owe money to, old college chums, old high school chums (and they ARE old...at least they look it to me...as opposed to moi), neighbors, ex-employers, people whom I adore, people whom I abhor (adore...abhor...they rhyme, hot damn), et al. But I NEVER, EVER, post stories about former relationships (except for that one post about that BITCH who done me wrong, grievously...and mischievously...f***ing, ho, b***h, c**t, emasculating, SL*T!...that one). Never. That's a low road to bottomless perdition.



Today, I am going to make an exception. I am making an exception because this is not really about the relationship, or our dynamite sex life, or what great melons she had...nothing like that. This is about...snakes. STOP right there. I am speaking to the gutter-minded couple of people who visit here far too often. Just stop. Not that kind of snake.

Toward the end of this relationship I was living 150 miles from the city in which she lived. So, I would go over on the weekends to her place, and drive back Sunday nights for my job on Monday. Sometimes, she would come over to my place for the weekend, to give me relief from all that driving every weekend.

A bit about this lady. She loved antiques, art, dogs and...birds. In fact she had a dog, antiques, art...and birds. The birds were little, beautiful finches. She had a variety of finches...about a dozen in all. She housed them in a bamboo cage, which was about three feet tall. She was very protective of those damned birds...don't get me wrong, they were beautiful...just a lot of them. She was protective and worried so much about them, that on the weekends she drove over to my place, she would put them, in the cage of course, and the dog, in her car and bring them with her. How romantic you say? Indeedy.



I lived on the edge of town and my lot bordered on a large wooded area. Mind you, this was in Florida...a Temperate Zone state, home to a large amount of animals, birds and...other creatures. Anyway, on the rear of my place, there was a small stoop, I suppose they're called, which was enclosed. A utility room of sorts.

For some reason, which I don't recall, on this particular weekend, she put the bird cage...with the birds in it...out there in that room.

I was pretty tired, having had a busy week at work. I layed down and took a nap, leaving her to cook some fine dinner (she was a great New Orleans type cook, oh yeah---in fact, everything I know about cooking, I learned from her).

About an hour and heavy into REM later, I was abruptly awakened by a screeching scream, reverberating throughout the house..."MY BIRDIES, MY BIRDIES...OH MY GOD, MY BIRDIES". I jumped up, not really picking up on the birdie part, half asleep, thinking a mass chain-saw murdering manic had broken into the house (we had a lot of those out there in west Florida...chainsaw massacres, that is...and birdies for that matter). I grabbed the baseball bat I keep next to the bed, not knowing exactly what I was going to do with a baseball bat against a Stihl Chainsaw, but fuckit plucket, go for it. Outside the bedroom running around, screaming, flailing her arms, with a wild look in her eyes, was my New Orleans cooking lady friend yelling, "MY BIRDIES, MY POOR BIRDIES...HELP ME...HELP ME!" No mass murderer, however.



I ran through the kitchen, smelling some great gumbo, or some such as I passed through...wanting to stop and eat, but...headed to the back stoop and the birdies. I opened the door, and the sight that greeted me was one of horror and repulsion. I forgot to add, my lady friend was still screaming hysterically...mostly directly into my ear.

In the bamboo cage was one birdie, screeching in unison with my lady friend, flying and banging it's body from one side to the other in a desperate attempt to get out (not knowing where the door was, I'm guessing). Trying to get out because at the bottom of the cage, in it's evilness, was a Red Corn Snake...also trying to get out of the cage. The snake, unlike the birdie, did not have a chance in hell of getting out. The reason? Because it had eaten all of the other birdies, and now was too fat in the middle to get back through the bamboo bars. Such is life. Sometimes we stretch too far, and we, well...get stuck. And snakes, being the dumb fuckers that they are, don't know this. They just want to eat.



The snake was doing some major hissing, the bird was doing some major banging, and my lady friend was doing some major ear drum deafening screaming. I was secretly laughing...not because the birds had been eaten...no, because it felt like a Monty Python routine, or on the serious side a Feline movie. Feathers were flying everywhere.

I yelled, "open the back door", to my friend, not the bird or the snake. I grabbed a pair of channel lock pliers I had on a tool rack, because the damned baseball bat was of no fucking use...except maybe to beat the shit out of my friend to shut her up, but prison does not appeal to me. I then opened the door of the cage, and with the piers grabbed the snake, and threw it out the back door, before it could wrap it's sliminess around my arm. Last I saw of it, it was waddling for the woods out back.

My friend eventually got over the incident and got more birds. But she never brought them back over to my place. Guess she figured the apartment of hers was a more snake un-friendly place than my back stoop. If my memory serves me well, the damned dog slept through the whole incident. I don't think a pig would have done that. No sir, a pig is a loyal and brave companion, ready to lay down it's life for it's mistress or master, if need be. A pig would have let me sleep, gone out there, opened that cage BEFORE the situation got out of hand, and beat the living shit out of that snake. Too bad they taste so good, pigs I mean.

20 comments:

PENolan said...

The snake might have eaten the pig, unless he was a fast, ferocious pig - like Babe.

jadedj said...

PE---only if the pig was smoking some of those funny little cigarettes, which I had stashed...in the bird cage. Had this happened, they might have just chilled out together and had a little muchie of the remaining bird. And I would have remained in slumber, with no tale to tell. There is a karma here, you know.

PENolan said...

But can you dance like Farmer Hoggett?

Punch said...

Great story. I'll never look at finches the same. I'll see little pigs being eatin' by finches being eatin' by snakes. If you could just work a plane into it we might have a sequel. Call Sam L. J.

Mr. Charleston said...

Dang JJ, the same thing happened to me. Not the broad, the birds. I too had a cage of Zebra finches. A big cage. I go out in the morning to feed them and they're all crowded in one corner. I look into one of their little nests and there he was. A beautiful little rat snake with a lump in his belly too big to be able to get out of the cage. My cage was made out of 1/2" hardware cloth so you can see it was a pretty small snake. Now unlike most, I like snakes, used to collect them. In fact,used to collect rattlesnakes, pack them up in a cardboard box and send them by Greyhound bus to Ross Allen down in Silver Springs. He would pay a dollar foot for them. A nice little income for a high school kid.
Anyway, I threw the snake out into the yard and he hung around the house for the longest time. Last time I saw him he was about 5ft long. But I'm getting lost here. I thought this was about dynamite love and big melonies.

mo.stoneskin said...

"gutter-minded couple of people"

Bloody hell, I thought, he's on to me...

Fabulous story, sounds to me that the snake must have felt a bit like I do when I go back to work in January and struggle to fit into my clothes.

Steph said...

What a trip! I've been awoken to many things, but never to a snake in a bird cage. I would've crapped my pants. I like how you considered clubbing your friend to silence her screaming. Excellent read!

the walking man said...

So how was the sex that night once the snake was out of the house?

The Peach Tart said...

That's a hot mess there. Smell of cajun food, screeching woman with big melons, having to play Mr. Hero saves the day disposing of the snake. Was that good foreplay or not so much so?

Fancy Schmancy said...

I hear Elton John singing The Circle of Life as a surreal accompaniment to the Monty Python routine. Too funny.

jadedj said...

PE---I taught Farmer Hoggett everything he knows about dancing...and pigs.

Punch---I do hope this has changed your life for the better.

Oh, and Sam is not answering the phone.

Mr. C---Ahem, sorry about your birdies.

I am sure the post person...no, postman back then...loved going to your house, trying to figure out exactly what all that rattling going on inside the box was.

I saw Ross milk a gator, and wrestle a rattler one time. Just think, it may have been one of your rattlers.

No, no, no...this was about pigs.

Mo.---sorry didn't mean to leave you out. But, I was referring to two certain cretins who commented just before your comment...no names, mind you.

This makes a case for nudity. If we didn't wear clothes, we wouldn't be quite so aware of how many pounds we've put on, and would feel so much better about ourselves, methinks. Or not.

Heidi---It's nice to have a classy visitor here for a change. Even one who might have crapped their pants.

wm---Sex? Oh shit. That's what she was talking about. Damn.

Peach---You have stumbled on the reason I bought a pig.

Fancy---you hear Elton too? Wow. Although sometimes it's not Elton, but the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in my ear.

Thanks for the kind words.

Mike said...

I am not afraid of snakes, but if I found one in my house, I would definitely move! LOL!

jadedj said...

otin---I find them frequently, but usually in my head. I leave my head when that occurs.

Doug said...

Speaking of leaving, I have no clever comments to make on this Circle of Life foodie post, so I will snake through some traffic and see if I can spot a few birds out by the big stone cage on the waterfront.

Cheers!

jadedj said...

Doug---exactly what I should have done long ago.

themom said...

that is an incredible visual. Poor finches - fat snake! Now the pig....I guess what you say may be true about their loyalty, I wouldn't know - but I do know the late husband wouldn't let me have one many years ago, when the fad was the little "pot bellied" vietnamese pigs. Boo-hoo. Thanks for the laugh!

becomingkate said...

I watched a National Geographic documentary on King Cobras last night. Brutal!!

jadedj said...

themom---the snake was just being a snake, you know. I pretty much made up the pig thing, but I have read that they are quite intelligent, compared to dogs and horses. I have no experience with real pigs, however.

kate---long time no see.

Did I mention above that the snake in the cage with the birdies was a King Cobra? I nearly died a thousand deaths.

Punch said...

Yo..thanks for not mentioning me when you spoke of pigs.

jadedj said...

Punch---I had intended an addendum...thanks for reminding me.