OK… What really happened was more like…
Scene: Angie doing water aerobics. I look over and see a snake doing water aerobics. Go back to lunges and then in slow motion, my head slowly turns and realizes – IT REALLY IS A SNAKE. I hightail it out of the pool and stand on the edge pondering what to do next – all the while the promos from Snakes On A Plane are circling in my head. 'What would Samuel L. do?' And 'I hope his fired his agent for letting him do that movie.'
I scream a tiny scream hoping my husband who is inside on a conference call will hear me and coming running. No husband. I head over to the pool closet looking for the skimmer. 'WHERE IS THAT NET? Why is it so hard to find a net? Where in the world would my husband put the net? I can’t get the snake without a net! I run over to the backyard and look for the net. NO NET!!! WHERE IS THE NET??' I contemplate going inside to get my husband, but then I say to myself, 'Angie! You are a woman of the 90s! You can do this!' (Apparently in my head, it is still the 90s and women in the 90s fish foot-long snakes out of pools.)
I head back to the pool closet and find the net. Grrreat! Now I really have to get the snake. I head over to the side of the pool and start fishing. It squirms and then makes a break for the other side of the pool. I should jump in and get it. WHAT!!! Then I would in the pool with the snake. BAD IDEA! I run to the other side. After a few struggles, I get it in the net and it is all floppy and squirmy. Now I really scream and run toward the backdoor and fling it with all my might. It goes 3 feet. But that is far enough.
At this point, my husband comes running out. The combination of running and screaming has triggered an internal “huh…my wife might be in trouble…..” alarm.* I think, ‘Just in time, Lucky!’ I tell him how I got the snake out of the pool. He asks how big it was. I say a foot. He is surprised that is was actually a snake. See, when I originally said SNAKE! He thought worm.**
I made him check the rest of the pool. He declared it “All Clear.” And back into the water I went. Because if you don’t get back on the horse right away – you might never swim in your own pool again.
*Running and screaming independently do not sound the alarm anymore. I am a wee bit of an over reactor.
**See note regarding “over reactor”
I had a suicidal goldfish one time, and the first time it leapt out of the bowl, I spent a solid two minutes trying to determine how long it would take my brother, who lived five miles away, to make it to my house to pick it up. So, if I were in FL and saw a snake in the pool, I would be sitting on the deck chair still waiting for someone to take care of it.
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