Musing on worms. And our snake.

What the heck is this?

Today, I stood in Wal*Mart staring at my list.

An item I scribbled looked like “worms.”

What in the world is it?

Oh yeah. I need worms.

* * *

Children do things and you say “It’s their mess to worry about.”

Then they bring a snake into the house.

This is really their mess to worry about.

Then the only one who worries about the snake is me.

Well, I almost killed the thing because the cat was playing with it. I thought it might be poisonous and didn’t want it killing the cat. I called my teenager to come check it out.

So moments away from death, snake’s life is spared and carried up to teenager’s room.

* * *

Every day I asked, “Did you feed the snake?”

“I will.”

His standard response to “Please mow the lawn.”

My seven year old was good about making sure the little critter had water.

With my son’s perpetual “I wills,” I decided to forage the grassy plain and find something to eat for my newest charge.

The baby snake.

No problem, just catch a cricket.

Do you know how hard it is to find a cricket much less catch one? Right when you get about two feet from it, they fly a block away.

I was working on the porch and saw I huge cockroach crawling along the wood. I race over and scooped him up in my hands. (I really did. Even I can’t believe it.)

That’s how much I was worried about the snake. I carried a wriggling live cockroach in my hands upstairs.

He didn’t care for the cockroach.

So I googled it.

Garter snakes like fish and worms. Not bugs. I read a comment that they might take some cat food. I tried that.

No.

Finally I took matters into my own hands. And cue me standing in aisle at Wal*Mart realizing that “worms” indeed meant worms.