Comes of living alone, I guess. Didn’t think about it or I wouldn’t have done it.
About 2/3 of the way through shit-shoveling this morning I got a call from Landlady – “I’m shocked. [The well contractor] is actually on his way out to my place right now. Can you meet him and make sure he finds the place?” She’s been trying to get somebody out there to tell her why there’s a pond inside her wellhouse for weeks, with lots of promises and lots of no-shows. This guy, the last on the list because of the company’s extremely poor rep, actually showed up early.
So I dropped what I was doing and parked the Jeep out where I’d be sure to encounter the well guy if he really came, which he really did. Nice guy, we shook hands and walked out to the very neglected spot where there’s a falling-down wooden box containing Landlady’s wellhead.
If you open a box on a hot morning in the desert – especially when there’s open water involved – be prepared for whatever you might find inside. Assume it will have fangs and a very bad attitude.
He stood back. I (why is it always me?) flipped the top off the box and cautiously peered inside. Nothing. But…
You know those contemptible old pulp stories where the hero/narrator says something like, “Before I knew it, my big .44 flashed into my hand”? It’s right up there with ‘a dark and stormy night.’ I hate those stories.
And I swear I don’t remember drawing the pistol. I was concentrating on the box. But there I was, holding this pistol like an idiot, kind of wondering how it got there.
Good thing people around here are used to crazy desert rats and the things they do. The contractor never even flinched.
We had a similar story here last week. The only real differences being there was no water, nor a falling down box or a .44 that magically jumps up and kills(you and those gun control advocates…..where do you get those marvelous toys?) but there was a sword. Yes, a sword. Also, there was a fangy thing with 13(yup, 13) buttons on a rattle.
The skin is bathing in a glycerin and alcohol mix, the rattle lives with my reloading bench in the garage and the meat was tasty enough while hot off the BBQ properly cajun seasoned.
I’m sort of hoping a medusa tree doesn’t sprout up in the front yard where I buried the head.
better to have and not need it than to not have and really need it and having it in your hand saves a bunch on reaction time.
Killing a rattler with a sword would be moderately cool. I’ve done it with a shovel (best weapon I’ve found, actually, though a bit cumbersome) but never a sword. I’d worry about screwing up the edge on the rocky ground, since I don’t think he’d obligingly rear up for me.
13 on the rattle?? Wowzers…(I grew up under the hobby-herpetologist father who had rattlers at some point, 6 months old and those bastards were NOISY)
He was in the bare dirt on the front of my house. No rocks, cheap factory seconds cold steel light cavalry saber. I actually had to wait for it to uncoil itself being I didn’t want to hack up the body, just remove the bitey bits from the dinner and hatband sections. It didn’t want to cooperate and being warm it was moving faster than I like deadly things to be able to move.
My niece took a video of the sword at use. I would email it, but she has flopped off to Africa and won’t be back for a few weeks.
I’ll have her get a screenshot of the carnage and forward it along when she makes it back.
I have to admit, it was a nervous business killing that snake with a saber. The blade is about 33 inches. The snake was almost 5 feet. I was not happy about the proximity, no matter how many of these things I manage to dispatch, I never get used to being that close to them. I’d rather use a gun and some shot.
Yeeeeeah I am not a fan of snakes… and that bugger sounds longer than me! (I’m 4’5”)
What is your daughter doing in my godforsaken continent?? (I’m in South Africa)
I hope she is Ebola dodging. Not that it matters if she is or not, the wise people at the CDC are bringing two Ebola victims to the USA. Smart.
That said, I really don’t know what she is actually doing, she is on a trip with her church.