"Mommy.. what's that smell?"

I have another fabulous report from the land of Asperger's. Many of you try to reassure me that many of my stories would be common among any little boy, but I doubt that this is true. I just really really doubt it. Take this one for example. Three weeks after the infamous snake indecent, Evan, who up until this point would say no more to me than "I touched that snake mom", decides to full on open up and tell my good friend Bonnie the whole story. Now this is THREE weeks later! Not a word to his mommy, not a word to any of the five hundred health care professionals and well wishers about what happened, but for some reason Bonnie hit the magic button and he told her the story. I think the thing that is most Aspie-like about all of this is the stone cold silence and lack of emotion when it comes to the whole ordeal. Anyway.. here's the story.

It seems that Evan and Lydie had been visiting the little chicken coop in our back yard that is a good 100 feet from the house when they first came across the snake. Evan, being the lover of all animals that he is decided it was as pretty as a flower and that he needed to pick it up and take it to his mommy, because that's what little kids do right? Bring their mommy all the neat things they find. So he caught the copper head (we may never know how) and carried it (as Lydie reported later) all over the yard then finally up to the back porch. But before he could get the back door open so he could BRING IT IN THE HOUSE (!!!!!!!) to show me, it got angry and bit him. So!! Now we know why the snake was on the porch. We may never know why it didn't occur to me in the previous three weeks to just as Lydia what happened. Once I heard the story from Bonnie and tried to get Evan to retell it, which he wouldn't, I turned to his little partner in crime and she confessed it all.

Many of you asked how I stayed so calm when all of this happened... let me assure you, calm would have been the last thing you could call me had I seen my precious five year old hauling a pit viper around my back yard like it was a jump rope or handing it over to me like a prize dandelion. Calm. No. Not calm. I'm not even calm thinking about it. And I love all creatures great and small.

It seems, however, that Evan has learned his lesson. We dared to have a little back yard party over this past holiday weekend. We stoked up the fire pit and pulled out all the chairs. I even swept the kitchen floor (this is a big deal for me). And we were all sitting around swatting mosquitoes and enjoying watching the kids catch lightening bugs when all the sudden there was a disturbance in the force. Now I had gone upstairs to tuck little Maggers into bed so I headed right down to see what was going on. The scene that met my eyes was one of three large men with various yard tools beating the living daylights out of one of the many ivy islands in our back yard. My friend quickly told me that our dear little snake charmer, Evan, while looking for fireflies had actually found another copperhead. He was very sure to run through the procedure we'd drilled into his head and he assured us many times over the next few days (and several phone calls to grandparents and friends - why is he telling this story now?) that he did NOT touch the snake or try to catch it, he just got the parents.

So, no worries, everyone was safe and sound (including the snake). And the following Monday we set off as a family on a "Snake Away" expedition. We drove to a nearby lawn and garden store where I happen to know several very friendly old men work who seem to know everything about everything from pig pickins to poultry poultices. Sure enough, within minutes we had a darling little southern grandpa telling us "Now ya see, what ya really need here is some moth balls." "Moth balls??" "Yup.. moth balls. Them snakes hates the smell. Can't abide it. They'll be runnin fer the woods before ya know it!" "But what about the snake away stuff?" "Well see, that's just moth balls and sulfur and the sulfur will burn em.. but the moth balls will make em want to run. You gots to get rid of the snakes first then put that stuff down to burn em and keep em away. But to get rid of the snakes you gotta mow everything down or you gots ta get ya some moth balls." "Great! what isle are they on?" "Oh you gots to head to the dollar store for them. Don't buy em here. We're out anyway." Ha!

Off to the dollar store!! And five boxes of moth balls later we were home and throwing them all over the ivy in the back yard. It was about the middle of the second box when we stopped and said... Oh Good Heaven Above! The smell!!!!! Even the kids said.. What is that smell mommy?! It was so horrible it drove us out of the back yard. We didn't even finish spreading the stuff. We all ran for cover in the house and made sure all the doors and windows were locked then we perched in the sunroom to watch the scent crazed reptiles slithering for their lives away from the chemical fog we'd created. How in the world can anyone put those foul satanically scented eggs anywhere near their clothes?!?! I mean really!? ugh. On another note though, now I can positively identify the smell my good friend's mother constantly had about her in high school. (One more life mystery solved.. check!)

It was sometime later in the evening when Dan turned to me and said.. uh.. how long is this smell going to last? And I said.. dunno.. why? and he says.. uh.. we have like five hundred people coming for Evan's birthday party on Saturday. This got a forehead slap from me. Thank the Lord it rained that night, and all day today and it's going to rain all day tomorrow. So hopefully, with a little luck and a lot of apologizing, the smell will be abated a bit and the party won't be ruined. At least we can let the parents know their precious five year olds are in a snake free yard. So what if it stinks? Millions of people still flock to Yellow Stone's Hot Pots and that's about the second most foul smelling place on earth.. my back yard being the first.