Random Thoughts and Musings

So, after my dream the other night, I had snakes on the brain. Real snakes, people, this is no euphemism! LOL

I remember the first run-in with a snake I (indirectly) had. I was young-is, 8 maybe? I had seen snakes before, but they were all in the distance, or non-poisonous, or behind glass where I could admire them without danger.

This particular day, though, my grandmother’s dog, Prissy, would *not* let me go inside. I couldn’t figure out why she was being so obstinate about letting me through the carport to get to the door. I decided to walk around to the front door, but she wouldn’t let me near that one, either. Finally, I started banging on the side of the trailer-portion of the house, trying to get someone’s attention. When nobody answered, I walked around the back, to where my grandfather had built on a two-room addition. I banged on the window, and told my grandparents and parents that I couldn’t get inside. My (step) dad tried to come out the door, but Prissy threw herself against it, and started barking furiously. Suddenly, she swung around and faced inside the carport, barking and growling and lying low to the ground. I tried to walk up behind her, and she swung around to me, snapped, and then swung back around and lunged at something. I heard her yelp, and screamed for my (step)dad and grandfather to come out and help. They looked under the trailer portion of the house, both of them rearing back suddenly and swearing, rushing inside and grabbinbg guns. My grandfather was hollering for my grandmother to call Mr. Jimmy from next door and the neighbor from across the street, and for everyone to bring their guns.

My (step)dad hollered at me to go across the street immediately. This whole time, Prissy is barking furiously and lunging at something under the trailer. I get across the street, and Miss Angie drags me in the house and slams the door just as she shoves her husband’s gun into his hand and tells him to run. I hear three shots a few moments later, and the phone rings - it is my Mom, telling me I can come home.

I rush back, excited to see what was happening, and see Prissy lying in the driveway, my grandfather and grandmother crying over her, my mom hysterical on the phone with someone, and my (step)father trying to calm everyone down so he can look at her. I screamed at them, asking who shot her. They all stopped what they were doing (except my (step)father, who was working furiously over Prissy still) and then pointed to the carport. I looked, and in front of my grandfather’s car, I see a HUGE ASS FREAKIN SNAKE.

Turns out, a diamond-back rattler had slithered out of the woods and under the house. Prissy had been trying to keep me safe (and my family, too, when they walked out), and had decided to stand down the snake rather than let him at me. She was bit twice, in the ear.

Mom was apparently on the phone with the vet, who was out of town. He directed her to an emergency vet, and she hopped in the car with Prissy and my (step)father (who was still trying to keep her alive), and off they raced. She died, twice.

Luckily, she was revived both times. They had to medicate her, keep her overnight, and give her bulldog blood in and emergency transfusion because she had bled out so much. She, literally, fought to her death. If my (step)father hadn’t been breathing for her and doing chest compressions, she would not have made it - he kept shocking her heart and kept the oxygen in her system. She was technically dead before they even left to go to the vet.

While my parents took Prissy to the vet, my grandfather took me over to the snake. I was hysterical, because Prissy was dead (this is before we found out she would be okay), and he told me he loved her, but was happy she was there to protect me and take the bite, because he would have never forgiven himself if the snake had gotten to me.

I was heartbroken until my (step)father called to tell me the vet saved Prissy. She was deaf in her left ear, and went blind in her left eye a couple of years later, but lived for another few years (she was old when this happened - at least as old as me, but I think older).

That rattlesnake was more than 6 feet long. It was beautiful, but I could not see the beauty that day … it was not until later, after it was skinned (for a belt/purse/boots/whatever) and we’d eaten the meat and put the rattler out to dry (or, whatever you do to a rattlesnake’s rattle to save it for a souvenir) that I realized how beautiful a creature the snake had been.

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