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Out at the family farm, we’d just driven in and mother rushed ahead to the bathroom. Two seconds later, she rushed back out hollering about a snake in the toilet. Grandpa and I went in there and didn’t see anything. The house was old so the floors shook which moved the water in the old rusty toilet. We told her she just saw shadows in the water but she kept complaining. Finally, grandpa poured a container of gas down the toilet - his answer to everything - and said that’d take care of anything down it. A bunch of white gunk started floating up so I sat down on the floor and propped my chin on my arm on the seat to watch the gunk (simple minds) when all of a sudden a 6 foot racer shot out and hit me smack between the eyes. I jumped up and ran to the living room screaming with the snake after me. Mother came down the hall and saw it so ran and jumped on the coffee table. Grandpa, who is never scared of anything, was hollering for someone to shut the door and ran outside to get the hoe. Prim and proper Mother who is appalled at four letter words let loose with a whole stream telling him to shut the_______ door himself. The gas had made the snake crazy so it was literally climbing the walls and came out from under the large gap at the bottom of the door and headed to us. Whew, grandpa finally took care of it and admitted he’d been hearing something in the toilet at night and had put a rock on it to keep the lid shut.

Another time, I was trying to lock up the house which had a half dozen locks on it because no one lived there permanently anymore. A storm was kicking up and the wind was blowing the old screen door against my leg. I had an armful of wire clothes hangers which were in danger of falling and the screen had caught on my pant leg so I kept kicking at it and grabbing hangers. Finally, got the house locked and bent down to unhook my pants. It wasn’t the screen. It was another danged 6 foot racer who’d been doing figure eights around my legs. Don’t ask how I got loose from him and to the car but one second I was on the porch and the next thing I remember I was at the car and he was slowing going under the porch.