Me, The Pool and a Ssss. . . .

I can barely say it because the whole incident and its bad memories come flooding back. But, yes, I was in the pool yesterday with a snake.  

There was major flooding and damage around here with all of the storms on Wednesday, which is what I am hoping caused the snake to be near the house.  Anyhow, the story goes like this: Lowery was down for a nap and Steve was home for lunch so I decided to try and get some sun.  I pull the raft over to the side, get on and begin my - what is supposed to be relaxing - time in the sun.  I'm floating around and notice some dirt on one of the side tiles.  I started looking around to the other tiles and that's when I spotted it.  Its head sticking straight out from the cover of a drain on the side of the pool, about a FOOT away from me.  I'm frantic - I start paddling backwards towards the step and that's when it slithered in the water WITH me - and all "you know what" broke loose.  I don't know really how I got off that raft and to the steps, but let's just say it wasn't pretty.  And if a movie camera would have been rolling I'd be $10,000 richer courtesy of America's Funniest Home Videos.

With all of my flailing, splashing and screaming, Steve runs out.  I muster a throaty, drawn out scream of "Sssnnnaakke." Steve now looks worse than me. What now?  We know we need to kill it, but how?  With what?  We don't have a lot of tools, no hatchet handy.  You know us, we're not nature people.  Don't build things, have tools around.  We're sports people, we like sports. Not snakes.

Steve tries to trap it with the pool cleaner-net.  He does, then instructs me to go look for something to actually kill him with. What did I come up with?  The biggest kitchen knife we have. Please see picture of said murder weapon.  The snake swims in 

the filter basket - it took all of the courage me and Steve had to take the filter top off.  Then we got another surprise, along with the snake were two brown and slimy frogs. What is this, wildlife aquarium?  We're both hollering now - I trap the snake with the net pole and Steve reaches down and cuts the head off with the kitchen knife.  Not pretty, but over.  Of course you know the worst part - the way the body keeps slithering around after the head is gone.  This totally creeps us out and its a while before we (I mean Steve) can muster enough composure to actually lift the filter basket and take it to the grass out back and dump it.  

I've always prided myself of not being that afraid of snakes - spiders are my terror.  But that has changed, and I am freaked out beyond words.  How will I enjoy the pool again?  Will it ever be the same?  I'm a mess, I'm disturbed.  Granted, it was pretty small - a baby.  BUT WHERE IS THE MOTHER??  Help me!!!!