The tale of the humongous snake

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I was deep asleep Saturday morning, dreaming, probably snoring, and possibly drooling, just loving the fact that I didn't have to get up until 8 a.m., when I heard a scream that caused me to nearly roll out of bed. "Ahhhh, there's a snake in the bathroom!" my wife, Marlene, yelled. I hopped out of bed and ran over to the bathroom door, which she'd left ajar, and peeked my head in. The problem was I didn't have my contact lenses in, so everything was a bit blurry. "It's huge!" she went on to warn me, "And it's mad. It was gonna bite me!"

Through my foggy, hazy vision, I saw a long strip of dark brown along the right wall of the bathroom, and that was enough to freak me out. I slammed the bathroom door and shoved a towel up under the crack at the bottom to prevent it from escaping. Now, I wouldn't say the snake was huge, but it was longer than any snake I'd like to see in my house. Plus, I've seen enough National Geographic to know that size doesn't always matter...not in this situation. For all I knew, it could  have been one of those insanely poisonous snakes that has venom that can kill you in 30 seconds or something like that. That's the kind of stuff that guy with the Australian accent always says on TV.

My wife ran to the phone and immediately called her mom, who went on to call the bomberos (firefighters), the police, and the landlord. Oh, and all this was at about 6 a.m. The landlord showed up first with the police. The cops were laughing and joking as they bounced through our living room, psyching each other up, each prepping the other for the battle with this humongous snake. My wife said they were saying things in Spanish about how they were Conan and about to slay the dragon. The landlord told them to grab machetes, but they claimed they only needed broom sticks. As they headed towards our bedroom, the firefighters walked through the door, a team of three. These guys were wielding machetes.

So about five guys were standing outside our bathroom door. They opened the door and peered in. Then one cop yelled out, "You saw a snake in this bathroom?"

My wife said, "Yes, in there, it's huge. It's on the right side."

The cop replied, "I don't think you saw a snake. I don't see anyth...ah...get him!"

A few slams and bangs later and they called out, "Got him!"

One of the firefighters had cut off its head with the machete. Here's what it looked like after:

Looks pretty big, right? It kept chomping and hissing even with its head cut off. It's some sort of constrictor though, so the cops said it's not venomous, and had probably just come in from the little river behind our house to search for mice. If that's the case we should've kept the little fella around. The cops and firefighters had a good laugh, making fun of my wife's humongous snake. If you're wondering what this huge beast looked like to them? This is the snake without the close up.

Kind of looks like a little turd. In my wife's defense, when it wasn't coiled up, it did seem pretty big. Now my wife makes all the kids wear flip flops in the house and she makes me check the kids ten times throughout the night and won't dare go into the bathroom without searching it first. She crouches down and stalks through the house like some sort of ninja in stealth mode, making sure no snakes have entered the house each morning after she wakes up. Me? I still walk around barefoot and stumble blindly into the bathroom at night. Hope that doesn't come back to bite me.