More than one way to skin a snake

Welcome to Quiz Time at Soup Is Not a Finger Food! Put on your thinking caps, boys & girls. Now, look at this photo. Can you guess what this is? Go ahead - click to get a closer look. I’ll wait right here.

If you guessed “snake skin,” you are correct! Great job!

Would you like to learn an interesting fact about snake skin - one that doesn’t involve shoes or belts? I knew you did. Why, here’s one from Wikipedia (and take notes, because this will be on the quiz):

The shedding of scales is called ecdysis, or, in normal usage moulting or sloughing. In the case of snakes, the complete outer layer of skin is shed in one layer.

Here’s another Fun Fact - one that Wikipedia doesn’t address: What should one do if one should find an entire huge snake skin in, oh, say YOUR GAS GRILL?

We only thought our biggest grill-related problem tonight was that the propane tank was empty and I would be forced to cook dinner indoors. Actually, the much bigger problem was what we discovered when we (and by we, I mean “my husband”) removed the grill cover.

I’m inside puttering around with the rest of dinner, while hubby is outside with the boys, getting ready to fire up the grill to cook a ham steak. I hear middle son yelling from the patio, “Hey, Mom! We found a snake!” And I’m all, “that’s nice, dear,” thinking it’s one of those little babies you see - the ones that are around the size of large earthworms. It’s so lovely the boys can learn about nature, living here in the woodsy suburbs, I mused. Then, I hear the kids and their dad talking about having found it in the grill.

Well, that got my attention. I went out, and THIS is what I saw.

And just like that, I have several new problems besides just that the propane tank is empty. For example:

• My husband helpfully pointed out that the skin was TOO SMALL for the snake. What went unsaid is that there is a snake BIGGER than that skin roaming around out there. (!!)
• If that’s where Mister Snakey is going to shed, then there is probably a chance he’ll go tell all of his snakey pals to slither on up inside the grill cover, to do their bidness, because it gets toasty-warm in there when the sun hits it.
• There is now a zero percent chance that I myself will ever remove that grill cover myself, and maybe a one percent chance that I will be anywhere near the grill when it is removed, period. This means I am at the mercy of someone braver than I if I want to grill anything ever again.
• Did I mention that this grill is on our patio, right next to the doors that lead into our family room?
• Did I also mention that I have three kiddos who run around out there? And two pets?

Sensing my unhappiness, my husband kicked into PR Mode. He tried to put a positive spin on this discovery. “Isn’t it good luck to find a snake in your house?” he offered. However, a quick internet search revealed only stories such as, “I lost my snake in my house” (presumably, someone’s pet) and, “How can I get a snake out of my house?” (presumably NOT a pet). I found nothing whatsoever related to the supposed “good luck” that might accompany such a discovery in one’s home, let alone under the cover of one’s gas grill.

So, if you are happening by our place around dinnertime, you are welcome to join us. We will be serving fried hamburgers, fried steak, and grilled nothing. And if we manage to catch Mister Snakey? We might fry him up, too. I hear it tastes kind of like chicken.