Apartment Dwelling Animals

Last night our apartment got a little excitement. I was cooking dinner and had a friend over. I went into the kitchen to find the kitten kind of spazzing out. She was visibly distressed about something in the general vicinity of the refrigerator. Now about a year ago or so, my other cat had alerted me to a giant sized rat that was hiding behind the fridge. I left the kitten "guarding" the kitchen while I went in search of my flashlight. I was hoping and praying that I would not be finding another rat and I was preparing curses upon which I would heap upon my landlord for not doing anything about the situation last time.

I peered around the fridge and was disgusted to find, not a rat, but a snake. A snake was in our apartment behind our fridge! It was slowly venturing to leave the safety of the back of the fridge and move along towards the back door. I freaked out. I threw Shalom (the other cat) towards it because back in the day, when we lived at the other house, she was an avid snake hunter. She ignored the thing. Useless creature!

So I called the closest boy to come rescue us. Johnny, one of my upstairs neighbors, came flying down with his two buddies all excited about the snake. We pushed aside the fridge and he managed to snag a grab at it, flinging it into an empty kitchen trash can. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Maile called Johnny at that moment and he told her he was standing in her apartment with a snake he just caught behind her fridge. She thought he was joking. I wish it had been a joke. She was almost home so she insisted we keep the snake until she could see proof of it.


The snake didn't seem quite like a normal garter snake. It wasn't colored exactly like one and it had this bad habit of occasionally shaking its tail at us. He didn't have any rattles on it so we kind of ignored that. It also would lash out with its head like it was attacking. That was a little disturbing.

Maile got home and we decided to throw it outside. Johnny and Maile ran about a block away and tossed the thing. They came back and I thought the adventure was over...until someone said something to me this morning...


I was retelling the night's exploits to the gals at work and one of them asked if the snake had maybe escaped from a neighbor. A sickening feeling of dread fell over me as I remembered the countless reptiles that my immediate neighbor Kerri owns. In particular a pretty little snake that she keeps in a cage in her room. OH MY GOSH!!! I just threw out my neighbor's pet!! Crap, what do I do?!

I called Maile and she called Kerri and the rest of the evening's exploits were told to me. Apparently, when Johnny was outside the apartments later, Kerri came out freaking out about her lost snake. Evidently one of her cats had knocked over the cage and the snake was missing. Hmmm...where did it go. Johnny told her about rescuing me from the snake that I found in my kitchen earlier and she made him go searching through all the bushes where they had thrown it. And amazingly enough, they found it! Praise God!! (BTW the snake was a corn snake. )

I am relieved at how the situation ended. However, I am over finding rodents in my home. Not cool.