A Visitor

[W. Gray]

I thought I might have posted this once before, but a search did not reveal that to be the case.

A couple years ago, I arrived in Howard during evening hours for a three-day stay with my mother. Mom advised that she had that same morning driven her car to Danny Signer's garage on Randolph. The motor was acting up and she did not know what was wrong.

The next morning I took her to the garage to see if Danny had found any clue as to what was wrong. Bear in mind, now, that my mom keeps her car garaged in a fairly tight garage with a concrete floor and it is never left outside.

As I walked through Danny's service entry door, her car was sitting right there with the hood up. I immediately spotted something thick sticking straight up from under the hood. My immediate thought was that someone was playing a trick on Danny as he was nowhere around. He had gone down to get a part from Lanning's.

What was sticking out from under the hood was a large well-fed snake. There had to be 12 inches of snake just standing straight up looking in my direction. My initial thought was that it was a rubber snake but I visually checked the head to see if it might be poisonous. It was not. I moved from side to side of the snake trying to decide if it was real. About then, Mom saw it and screamed that its eyes were following me around. 

I am not a snake fan even if they are not poisonous. Some people will say that they will not hurt you but that does not convince me. I was not about to retrieve this critter.

The snake just stayed there motionless. Eventually, Danny came back and I joked to him that I found the trouble with the motor. He looked and said "Holy Cow." Then the snake disappeared back down somewhere under the motor.

As it turns out, Danny had been working under the hood using a hammer to bang and tinker around inside the motor cavity. He had his hands down in there grabbing things to try to see what might be wrong.

Apparently, Mom had driven her car and her passenger to the repair garage. We surmised the snake had been looking for a warm spot and had somehow slithered into her garage, found a warm motor, and decided to stay.

I left Danny with the problem. He later reported it as a 5.5-foot long black snake. He got it out apparently with some help. Then he fixed the car.

[Bonnie M.]

Snakes are not my friends, either!  What a great story!  Danny was the hero, I'd say!

[Teresa]

Oh that's a hoot.. I have never heard him talk about it..
( and since I KNOW he comes on this site and reads/lurks.. maybe we could chide him into telling us more..
( I will work on that) 

[Tobina+1]

Well, at least your mom wouldn't have to worry about mice and rats in her car if the black snake was there... not sure which would be worse, though.

[sixdogsmom]

They say they cannot hurt you, but they can sure make you hurt yourself! We had several of the big black snakes hanging around the house on west second street. Absolutely huge! They keep the bad snakes under control though, I would never bother one of them, just try to keep from hurting myself! LOL!

[Teresa]

I never kill a black snake.. There is good of every species and the black snake will hiss at you and even chase you sometimes, but they are the "good uns".. They keep other vermin away. Mama always had one in the basement, so Sister and i learned to not be afraid of them .. Still startled the hell out of when you saw her though.
((We thought at the time that our mama was the bravest woman in the world .. cause she used to get rid of the babies .. Sis and I wouldn't ever had got under the opening to do that.. nope and I still wouldn't.. LOL