Here’s the story:
Around 4:15 Monday afternoon, as we were waiting for Hannah to finish getting ready to go to choir (by 4:30 — we were pushing it!), I sat down to check my Facebook page.
Abbey started screaming from the kitchen. Normally, her screaming doesn’t phase me: she rarely speaks at a low volume and she is regularly frustrated with her older brother, Noah. But this shriek was a little different in that it I could sense a twinge of fear in her voice. However, I kept my seat because I recalled Noah, hoping to scare someone, had been placing his silly putty in the shape of a snake in different places.
So I asked, “Are you and Noah trying to trick me?”
And she giggled.
Dead give-away. I kept my seat.
Then Noah called from the kitchen: “Um, no, Mom. It’s for real.”
Then Hannah: “Yes! Mom, there really is a snake in the kitchen!”
They both sounded rather calm about it. But I rolled my eyes and got up anyway. I walked around the corner and saw a snake on my kitchen floor. It was in the exact shape and color as one of Noah’s toy snakes. You know those little plastic things?
“Okay, you got me,” I said.
“NO, look!” Hannah said as she pushed the snake with her shoe.
And it slithered a bit.
“There’s a snake in the kitchen!” I screamed.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you,” Noah quipped.
I grabbed the nearest book (surprise, surprise) that could tell me what kind of snake we were dealing with. It matched the garter snake, so we played with it for a few minutes, put it in Hannah’s hermit crab habitat, and decided to keep it. We have an extra aquarium that we can use as a habitat. The kids will enjoy catching prey for it from around the house. Garter snakes eat amphibians, worms, spiders, small fish, and slugs. I look at it as a learning opportunity.
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Leslie Wiggins 
16 responses to “I found this in my kitchen”
Oh. My. Goodness.What kind is it?Details!
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EEEEEEK!
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What happens while camping should stay with camping! Did you forget that rule?Yikes.
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You forgot to tell the important part of the story–how it got in your kitchen and how you’re going to make very, very sure that you never have another snake get into your house unannounced again.(I really don’t like snakes. . .)
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I have no idea how it got into the house. I’m guessing under our back door, since there is a very small gap there, but I can’t be certain.
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You are a very brave woman. I played with snakes when I was a little girl, but I don’t think that I could be persuaded to pick one up now. And I know my son wouldn’t either. My girls might though…
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We have lots of those here, but I’ve never had one inside. Yikes!
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I’m impressed that you were so calm about the whole experience and you are even keeping it. It really is quite a pretty creature…
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Leslie,I just have to know how Karl reacted to this. Are you keeping it in the house? How big is it?(length, that is). It just gives me the heebie jeebies (I can’t stand snakes–I’m really afraid of them!!)On another note, I’ve really loved looking at the pictures you’ve posted recently of your camping trips–especially the one with Karl and the kids last week. It makes me want to go camping again, too!Give my love to all the kids and Karl. Love, Aunt Terry
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That gives me the willies!
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Oh PinkGirl would never sleep in her own bed again. Seriously.
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wow. that will never be me! Snakes and me to not do will together.
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OH MY GOSH….Leslie…I am flipping out all over!!! I can’t even put words and thought together. THAT is one of my WORST nightmares…..and would NEVER respond the way your responded. That would have me ripping around getting every child out of the house and not coming back until I knew the house had been….I don’t know….detoxed of those creatures! Wowza….I’m starting to feel a little more calm about this….I can’t believe how calm you were!!!!!
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The worst thing I usually find in my kitchen is rotting food. But a SNAKE? AND YOU KEPT IT? Are you feeling okay? Shivers.
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You are so cool. Personally, I would have had to move. I don’t care if it’s a garter snake, it’s a snake, in the house, I would not have handled it well at all. Seriously, I would have to leave the house until someone could convince me it would never happen again.
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Well, Karl said that we can’t keep it in the carport, that we’d have to keep it inside the house because of the aquarium and the heat lamp, etc. And I just don’t want another reptile in the house — we already have a turtle. The kids let it go in the woods behind our house.I guess I’m weird. I really wasn’t bothered by the snake being in the house. Had it been poisonous I probably would have felt differently.
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