"Why'd it have to be snakes.?"

Ohio isn't really know for it's abundance of reptiles.  We have a few snakes,  mostly in the southern half of the state, and the majority of them harmless.  Up here, it's the occasional garter snake, when you see them at all.  There ARE a few venomous ones,  Copperheads, Cottonmouths, and couple species of Rattler, but unless you go looking for them in specific habitat, you don't see them.

So,  Monday night after I came home from PT, it was hotter than balls out.  We don't have central air, and I hadn't gotten around to putting the window unit in.  I got the frame put in the bedroom window, and went to the basement to get the AC unit.  Imagine my surprise when I went to catch up the power cord, and it suddenly moves and hisses at me!  What I had assumed was one of my wife's fancy curtain tieback ropes was now animated, coiled up and pissed off.

I texted my Sgt (who raises pythons,  as that was what I thought this was), and most calmly stated OMGTHERESAHUGEMOTHERFUCKINGSNAKEINMYFUCKINGBASEMENTHOLYSHITITTRIEDTO KILLME.  He couldn't identify it from the cell phone pic, but advised me to "Stop being a woman and grab the fucker".  Easy for him to say,  safely miles away.  At this point Dear Wife had come home, and held the flashlight while I corralled the slithering beasty  in an old fish tank.

Long story short,  Wikipedia provided an exact pic and description of our intruder,  an Eastern Milk Snake  
An otherwise harmless,  beneficial critter to have around.  I was actually kinda bummed.  Had he been venomous,  I'd have skinned him out and shipped his carcass to Dennis.  (Look no further for most excellent dead reptile trimmed holsters!)  It was really tempting to ship him out to Dennis and just skip the skinning part altogether,  but I figured Mr. Snake had had a rough enough night and turned him loose out in the woods. 

If I ever see another damned snake in my basement, I'm taking Jay's advise and getting a friggin Judge :P


Bugger was just shy of 4 feet long.