surprise!

Yesterday was full of surprises. I left the house at 7:30 to go with my friend who is battling cancer to her doctor’s appointment two hours away. I do this to keep her company on the long drive there and the long drive back, plus it gives us extended girl time but it pretty much takes up the whole day. 

When she dropped me off at home I came in through the garage door and glanced to my right to see this IN MY HOUSE!

I keep the door to the fenced little backyard open when the weather is nice to get fresh air and listen to the birds and since I don’t have a screen door it allows the cat and dog to come and go as they please. And also, apparently, snakes. Now, I’m not afraid of snakes, by far the majority are harmless to humans, but I still get that automatic jolt of fear that seems inherent in humans when I come up on them unexpectedly. So when I saw this one just chillin’ about 8’ in from the open back door my immediate reaction was to yell ‘there’s a snake in the house’ which brought Marc into the room. We were pretty sure at first look that it was a harmless rat snake but rat snakes and copperheads have similar coloring. Copperheads which are venomous have a distinctive patterning, a triangular shaped head, vertical eye slit pupils, and only get about 30” long. Rat snakes vary in color and pattern, have round eye pupils and can get up to 7’ long but I wasn’t going to get close enough to see its pupils.

At this point the snake had not moved remaining motionless so I got a long walking stick and nudged it to see if it would strike. It didn’t but it did unwind enough to see that it was at least 4’ long so yeah, rat snake. I very gently and slowly used the walking stick to slide it towards and out the door. It didn’t object and it moved under the metal plant stand against the side of the house where it stayed for about 20 minutes and the next time I looked it was gone.

A very handsome specimen.

This is not the first time I’ve found a snake in the house. It’s happened at least twice before. The first time was soon after we had bought this place, same room, a much smaller and similarly colored snake I saw when I looked down from the couch where I was sitting with my feet up. The second time was a few years ago when a green ribbon snake found its way in through the open back door.

The second surprise of the day was when the mail came. I got a letter from Frank Hofer, a consultant and accounts manager with a reputable Investment Bank in Canada. He found my name in a search for the next of kin of a deceased customer of his bank, one Allan Abbott, a real estate investor and precious stone dealer, who lived and died in London, a Cancer Victim from a COVID 19 attack in 2020. Since no one has come forward to claim the $9,500,200.00 in his estate and all efforts to find next of kin have failed, Frank, out of the goodness of his heart, proposes to present me as next of kin to claim this money and it will only cost me 50% of the $9+M. Only fair, you know, since he’ll be doing all the work. I need only reply via his email for further clarification and details. Seems legit. Here’s Frank’s not sketchy at all signature.

All my worries are over! $4 1/2 million transferred directly into my account!