Saturday morning in the Pickwick house dawned early and noisily, as the Blessings awoke with the sun, paying no heed to the fact that no one happened to need to be up for work, or church, or even grocery shopping. When the sound of five unsupervised and lively Pickwicks enjoying all the freedom afforded to them by the drowsiness of the older and sleepier Pickwicks could no longer be ignored, Fr Pickwick announced that he would go make coffee and Mrs Pickwick announced that she would go take a shower.

Now, usually, Mrs Pickwick is too nervous to lock the bathroom door, in case the house catches fire or anyone loses a limb. She always tells the children that they are not to open the door unless it is Truly Very Urgent. This results in her shower being interrupted about every minute and a half. The emergencies generally range from Sweet rushing Busy in because she needs to use the bathroom now!! to Feisty marching in armed with her recipe notebook and pencil and asking, ” Would there be an A after the O in slushy, Mommy?” Orthography is always an emergency.

But, on a quiet Saturday morning when nothing at all is happening, Mrs Pickwick happily locks herself in and resolves not to come out no matter what is shouted through the door. Fr Pickwick can handle Anything.

Ten minutes later, the shrieking, and yelling, and banging, and running, and more shrieking breaks out. It truly sounds like an entire herd of bedlamites has descended upon the house. Mrs Pickwick considers poking her head out to interfere, but remembers her vow and that Fr P is at the helm and hums peacefully to herself amidst the bubbles.

The pandemonium continues to build and Mrs Pickwick becomes mildly miffed that somehow the household sounds worse than when the children are left entirely to their own devices and wonders what on earth can possibly be causing such a racket and why Fr P, who usually prefers a quiet cup of coffee followed by an uneventful plate of bacon and eggs to a complete maelstrom at any hour, let alone before 10 am, is even encouraging it.

Finally finished, Mrs P, still coiffed in a towel, emerges from the bathroom to find the entire family in a distressed heap of panic outside the door.

The Blessings, in chorus: “There is a snake in the kitchen!”

Fr P: “So we were, um, waiting for you to come out and um, do something.”

Now, Fr Pickwick can indeed handle Anything. He fixes everything, braves everything, puts up with everything, knows everything. But like a good Classic Hero, he has his Achilles’ heel and it happens to be, well, snakes. It’s the slithering.

Fr P explained that, as he was making coffee, Baby P started crying, so he turned around to see An Enormous Reptile Without Legs practically sitting in his dear son’s lap. That is when all the shrieking began. Then the girls arrived on the scene, the snake made a dash for the refrigerator and naturally everyone felt that continuing to scream and squeal and crash into walls was the best way to coax it back out.

The scene:
Fr Pickwick standing on a kitchen chair in front of the fridge, ready to pull it out.
Mrs P, standing next to the fridge, no longer in a towel and armed with a pair of kitchen tongs and a plastic storage tub.
The Blessings, banished to their rooms because it was very difficult to concentrate on the plan with multiple voices all yelling that there was a snake under the refrigerator. They were also traumatized by Fr Pickwick yelling “Get out of the kitchen this is a very dangerous creature!” while Mrs Pickwick was yelling “Don’t worry, it is probably absolutely harmless, I mean they can bite when agitated and that would hurt, but I’m sure it is not venomous which means poisonous which means you could die and anyway the poor thing is probably far more frightened than all of us except your father who takes the cake in that department just now, hands down…” They were not traumatized enough to stay put in their rooms, however, but kept bursting out one at a time at fairly regular intervals to yell “There’s a snake under the refrigerator!” and start the conflicting lectures all over again.

Mrs P: “Go ahead, I’m ready”

Fr P: “In your bare feet???? No, stand on a chair. It could seriously dart out at any moment and slither!”

Mrs P: “How am I supposed to catch it if I am standing on a chair? You are making me nervous! It’s not like we have rattle snakes or anything here!”

Fr P: “I think we do.”

Mrs P: “Oh.” (gets a chair) “I am sure they are very, very rare! It is probably the same little milk snake that lives under the garage next door. Alright, go ahead.”

Fr P: “There is a snake next door?? Why do we live here? What if we just move? Let the snake have the fridge, and the house, if he really wants it.”

Operation Capture the Reptile began. Unfortunately, even after moving the refrigerator all the way out (no easy task while standing on a chair), Mrs Pickwick was forced to report that she couldn’t yet say where the reptile was, but she could say where it wasn’t.

Mrs. P: “Are you sure you saw the snake? It was before you had coffee.”

Fr P: “Of course I am sure, the baby saw it too.” He pointed to Baby P, who had escaped from the bedroom and was happily eating a crayon and wearing only a diaper and didn’t look like an altogether entirely creditable witness.

Continuing to presuppose the existence of the reptile, however, Fr Pickwick stood on the porch shouting instructions about how to dismantle the back of the refrigerator while Mrs Pickwick operated the drill with one hand and the kitchen tongs with the other, and pulled out the stove to check behind there, for good measure. The kitchen looked like the apocalypse had hit and been scared off by the chaos when Mrs Pickwick gleefully cried that she could see the tail and it was indeed only a little milk sn……. Then the tail started shaking just as if it were a rattle snake and Mrs Pickwick leapt back onto her chair and did some frantic googling.

Relieved, she tentatively gave a little tug to the definitely-not-a-rattle tail. It was stuck fast. The snake was far to fat to come out any other way than the way it went in, and the Pickwicks were not doing a very good job of convincing it that this was a safe, quiet, reptile-friendly home.

Fr Pickwick bravely returned from the porch, looking something like this: 

He mounted his chair, and Mrs Pickwick explained that if he quickly shoved the fridge backwards, perhaps the snake would be scared and shoot out the front.

Fr P: “Right at me??”

Mrs P: “It is our only hope, unless you want to take over the tongs.”

Worked like a charm. A terrified snake came slithering rapidly out from under the fridge directly at Fr P, who leapt from his chair and out of the kitchen, screaming at Mrs P not to scream, who was screaming at Fr P not to scream, while all the children screamed to find out if there really was a snake under the refrigerator. Mrs P’s tongs flew into action and with a few deft movements a lot more screaming and throwing tubs and lids about, the snake was a prisoner of the Pickwicks and ready for deportation.

Fr and Mrs P loaded the tub into the back of the car and drove the snake several miles away before releasing it into the wild, where it is presumed it can find a competent therapist and move on with its life. Fr P will also be taking recommendations, if anyone knows a good Post-Traumatic Reptile Experience counselor.