I flipped on my left blinker to turn off my street, looking left, right, left…then right again. What is that? I squinted. On the street over by the mailboxes was a long piece of black tape and something wadded up. It looked like trash. I turned left and went two blocks then turned around. I had a sneaking suspicion.
I pulled up for a quick peek before heading off to work. I walked around the car to find out--it was what I thought—a full-grown black snake enmeshed in a wad of deer netting. Crap! I toed it with my black linen open-toed espadrille. It writhed. Double-crap!
I took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. I would have to do something. It was still alive. I happened to have a pair of scissors in the pocket of the driver’s side door. I never keep scissors in the car, but I guess I understand the parsel tongue of the snake gods and somehow knew I would need them.
I squatted on the street next to the snake. Its tongue flickered out. It was tangled from its head to about ¼ of the way down it body. Working my way toward the head, I eased a section of the black plastic filament away from its scales and snipped.
Snip by snip, square by square, I cut the snake out of the netting. The freer it got, the more it wiggled, until finally it was curling around on itself. I picked it, and the still attached mess of netting up, taking it up to the rock wall by the driveway. There on top of a gigantic boulder that I used as a table, I finished cutting it out. As I got closer to the head, around its throat and eyes, it stopped moving. When it was finally free and I pulled off the last piece, I nudged it off the rock and into the flowerbed. It slithered from view. I hope it returns the favor and hangs around. I need a few black snakes to ease the chipmunk over-population situation at my house. I am going to make a point of gathering up all of the deer netting anywhere on my property. I will never use it again. This is not the first time I have had to cut a snake out of it.
