The Mystery

By Maxine

This mystery has taken a long time to figure out, but one worth telling about.

Several months ago, following one of my four surgeries on my foot, I couldn't sleep, and was in a lot of pain. I got on my scooter and went into the living room to watch television and not wake up my husband. As usual, the only thing on late night television, or I should say early morning television is infomercials, or sex movies, neither of which I had any desire to watch. So as I lay there sobbing and feeling sorry for myself, I heard the familiar "blip-blip" sound of the doggie door in the kitchen. Well, I knew where my dogs were. They sleep in a baby bed in my bedroom, and that is where they were. What could this animal be??? One that had done this before ???

I listened quietly, wondering, was this a sound of something coming inside or something going out??? I didn't hear anything, so I got back on my scooter and eased into the kitchen, turned on all the lights, and was expecting to see a raccoon or some small animal finding it's way to the dog food bowl. I didn't see anything, and everything seemed to be in place. At least it got my mind off my pain, and time for the pain pill to take effect.

When you live in the country, you can hear lots of strange sounds, but never do we hear sirens, gunshots or ambulances that are normal for the big cities.

After another thirty minutes or so I decided that whatever it was had already eaten and when I went into the living room, it had found its way back out the doggie door. At least it didn't leave behind any poop.

About a week later, we were getting ready for bed. The house was quiet, the dogs were all asleep in their bed, and we heard a loud crash coming from the back of the house somewhere. It sounded like a picture had fallen off the wall and glass broke. We searched everywhere for evidence of this noise. Nothing!!

Another week went by, and I opened a cedar closet in the hallway to put up our winter coats, and there on the floor of this closet was a box of old 8mm films that could not have fallen off the top shelf by themselves. AH HA!! This was the noise that we had heard, but what caused it ??

At this point, all of you scaredy cats better just delete, because.......

I got a stool to stand on so that I could get a good look on that top shelf to see if I could find any evidence of a nest or something. What I found was the SHED SKIN of a very long SNAKE. It appeared to be the skin of a rat snake, but where was the snake???? He was not in the closet, and I haven't found it yet!!!!

It has been a good "company" deterent. HeeHee!!! And now we lock the doggie door every night. I just hope we haven't locked the snake inside.