Post by Steve Deckert on 07/16/09 at 03:19:27
Dear friends,
Every now and then the unlikely happens... and yesterday afternoon something about as strange as you can image happened to me here at my work bench. A work bench which I recently cleaned btw.
Now, admittedly there has been many times when things have hissed and jumped out at me while standing in my favorite spot in the world. Things like capacitors launching into space past my head from being hooked up backwards, etc. The crackle of high voltage isn't even alien to this bench as a few 5000 volt amps have been born here, as well as a couple tesla coils...
I'd been working at my bench all day, since about 7 am and took a break with Dennis outside to take in the serenity of the day. After about 15 minutes of that we both went back inside and I approached by bench at the end of the work room.
That's my stool off to the side. Back in the right hand corner of my bench is a bunch of test equipment buried under stuff.
I got to the bench and put my hand on the amp in front of me and all of a sudden a loud hiss from my right side and out of the corner of my eye I could see something heading straight for my face!
I jumped back just in time to see a vertical shape vanishing into the stuff and through the hole in the back for power cords to the shelf under the bench. It was really mad btw. Of course now I'm standing in the middle of the floor about where this picture was shot from with my hand on my heart which won't stop beating fast because the damn thing is still hissing and darting all around the place under my bench.
I knew by know it was a snake, but feared it might be big and the color and pattern looked unfamiliar. I've come in contact with all the local snakes in the area over the years, none poisonous. Never seen anything look like this, and couldn't get a good look at it because everything was moving too fast.
Dennis is still standing there behind me trying to figure out what the hell just happened... a frikin stake just tried to kill me, look there it is... So he got down there and looked at it while I still stood there dumbfounded and before I knew it the game was on...
Dennis and this stake are having a wrestling match under the bench then out in the middle of the floor for at least what seemed like 5 minutes. Anyway he was a bit more up on stakes then I was and knew it wasn't dangerous so it wouldn't matter if he got bit a few times, which he did.
We took it in the woods and let it go. It was a Python. We don't have pythons here. So that's how my day went and the rest of evening I found myself with beady eyes checking the parameter of all spaces around me. I have an old shed behind the shop with my mower in it, and I know realize it's possible for a Rhaptor that's been extinct for 20 million years or whatever hiding behind the fenders stacked in the corner.
Cheers,
Steve