PHOTO FOR THE DAY

We had a wee tiny visitor in the office last night. He/she somehow managed to find a way inside, which couldn't have been overly difficult as he was only as big around as a pencil. I was closing up shop and getting ready to leave for the evening when I stopped short, after I came around a table, at this fake plastic snake my co-workers had left for me to find. You know the ones you see in tourist places usually represented by an entire bin of curving plastic and wavering tongues?

This one was in that classic 'S' pattern with head slightly elevated off the floor and not moving at all. No waver, period. No tongue flicks, not a movement of the eye, nothing. So as my brain is trying to process if it was actually fake or real, I moved in a bit to examine it up close. It was the best fake snake I had ever seen!

I had just made the decision to reach down and pick it up when he jetted away to safety under our tablecloth draped work table. OK, yes, I'll admit, I let out a surprised 'whoa' and danced backwards a few steps. Then I did the girlie thing and called my male co-worker, Tim, who had just left the office not 20 minutes previous, to come back please, please, please and help me catch him. Mostly because I realized there was no way I could catch that little guy by myself, the rest being, well --- snake!

Just so you know, chivalry is not dead and Tim, snake catching tools in hand, was back at the office in about 15 minutes. By that time the little guy had left the cover of the table and migrated to behind a big display cabinet. Tim gently prodded from one side of the cabinet and I set up a snake corral with a couple of boxes at the other. Within 5 minutes the little fellow was curled up into a snake ball in the bottom of the box and being relocated to the desert-like rear yard.

Whew, what an evening. I really don't remember snake wrangling being part of my job description :)

Our visitor after being relocated to the back yard.