Of Skunks & Snakes

Did you know there are snakes which put out a "musky odor" as a defense mechanism when they get really freaked out?

Yeah, neither did I.

Until the cat brought another one into the house yesterday, and while the SO was disposing of it - ie. taking it back outside; this of course after making me take a picture of it because he thinks it's a beautiful little snake, and while I can appreciate the bright red color of it's markings, I am amazingly herpephobic in such a way that I can not even stand to touch a photograph of a snake and was very close to tears just having it in the vicinity of my person, so taking a picture of it slithering about in his hands was really pretty much the LAST thing I wanted to be doing - I picked up the cat and cradled her on her back in my arms, her paws all sticking up into the air, so that she could not go trotting out after him to watch where he released it in order to catch it again and return it to the environs of the house, a ploy she is wont to follow.

So anyway, there I am, holding this longhaired cat in my arms and opening my mouth to ask her nicely to please stop bringing the evil snake monsters into my house, when I draw in a breath for speaking and get the hugest whiff of the foulest scent known to man.

Seriously, that little olfactory treasure was hideous. It filled my nose, my mouth, everything. It tasted so utterly bitter, it was all I could do not to throw up, and I flung the cat away from me and ran to the bathroom, where I spat up as much as I possibly could and scrubbed my hands and arms and ripped off my t-shirt in an effort to cleanse the smell from my person, because as God is my witness, that frigging snake can put SKUNKS to shame. Seriously, flowers compared to that thing. Skunks do not in any way smell bad at all when sized up against ringneck snakes. And they do not taste like that, either. The taste alone was enough to put me away for ever and ever. It was truly the most vile thing I have ever experienced, and I have eaten raw squid and grew up on a dairy in Texas, where my father would make me tow away by hand the bloated carcasses of rotting animals in triple degree heat, not a one of which EVER smelled that bad or filled my mouth with such a taste. There's not a smell on this planet that can ever offend me again, because I have been to hell and back, baby, and there's nothing you can do to me, now.

And to top it all off? When I got home from the doctor's office today? The house was filled with the same smell, albeit a watered down version of it. You know what that means?

There's a snake. Loose. In my house.

Awesome.