Snakes in a Dash: The Riveting Sequel to Snakes on a Plane. Still starring Samuel L. Jackson

Soooooooooooooooooo, I have a story. It's a true story. Some of you may have gotten wind of it already. But it's one of the most bizarre things that has ever happened to me, soooooo I'm sharing it with my blog audience of about 5.5 people.

Yesterday morning I woke up, after having some weird dreams, and got dressed in my sister's fiance's CATS shorts and my Arizona hoodie. It was Jersey Day at school, and that's the best I could do. On my way out of the house, I grabbed Paris, my snake, who had been snoozing at home after eating the biggest mouse ever two days earlier. I wrapped her around my neck and my roommate/fellow teacher were off to school in my Volvo.

As I was driving, Paris began to slither down my arm, toward the steering wheel. Before I could really stop her, she wrapped herself around it a few times, then turned back to look at me, feeling rather self-satisfied. I warned her that it might be a bad idea to be there, but she didn't listen. She hardly ever does. Things didn't get bad for her until I had to crank the steering wheel around to pull into the school parking lot and park. As I was doing that, her head got bumped a few times and I could see she was getting mad, but was too dumb or distracted to do anything about it.

I parked and went to grab her, but realized that in her irritation, Paris had decided to retreat to a less bumpy place, namely, down the back of my steering column. I didn't even know there was a hole, but she found it, and, to paraphrase my roommate, gave us the middle finger as she disappeared into my dashboard. I panicked, a little.

I rummaged around in the back of my car until I found the special screwdriver that loosened the screws that keep my dash together. I undid the bottom panel in time to see Paris's tail disappearing into a hole I could not reach into. Now I really started to panic, but it was time for school to start. My snake was in my dashboard and I had no idea how to get her out.

I taught the whole day in a paranoid haze, feeling like a mother whose child has gone missing. I didn't tell my students, because I knew they would lose it and want to spend all of their class time pulling apart my car, piece by piece. So I soldiered on, worrying and fighting back tears.

In the afternoon, one of the guys who works as a janitor at Roseland came by and said he heard I had a 'dashboard problem'. I tossed him my keys without even saying anything back and he and the other janitor, both of whom are BIG fans of Paris, proceeded to disassemble my dash. There are positives to working in a sketchy black neighborhood :) They also showed me how easily my radio pops out of my dash. Good to know, in case I need to steal it.

But, despite all their work, my snake was nowhere in sight. I decided to drive home, despite being unsure whether driving might squish, twist, or otherwise mangle my missing pet. I parked my car, ran an extension cord out to it, and plugged in a heating pad, defrosted a mouse, plugged in a lamp, and crawled under my steering wheel to do some more looking.

On my back, prone, with one arm shoulder deep in the inner workings of a volvo dashboard, I saw her underside resting comfortably on some insulation way up inside the dash. Using some pruning shears, I chopped up that insulation and ripped it out, hooking my finger around a snake that I could only assume was probably still irate, hoping she wouldn't bite me toooo hard. After a few tugs and lots of vocal affirmations of love, heat, and delicious rodent snacks, she let go and tumbled onto my face. She didn't even bite me. Probably promises of rodent snacks did the trick. What a mercenary.

But, girl and snake once more reunited, after I'd spent all day imagining grisly images of mechanics pulling her mashed body out from the grinding gears in which she'd become entangled, I broke down and cried. Sobbed and sobbed. My mother called me during my breakdown and, hearing me, assumed that Paris was dead until I could brokenly affirm that I'd just gotten her out and she was fine. Then I punished her by putting her in her carrying case for several hours, because she looked far too pleased with herself when she came out of that dash. Not an ounce of remorse. So into solitary confinement she went.

This morning I was very happy to show her back off to the Roseland community whole and unscathed. Needless to say, today was a WAY better day than yesterday.

Maybe that's not a great story, but it was a big deal to me. :) The hazards of being a snake owner, I guess. Moral: Don't let your snake get wrapped around the steering wheel.