I'm never going outside ever again. Ever ever ever.

And after Aidan witnessed my complete meltdown, I'm not sure he'll ever go out again either. Parenting fail? Oops.

I should preface this by saying I have a very intense fear of snakes (no matter whether they're poisonous or not), although ideally I'd like to not pass that fear along to my kids (a healthy respect, of course; intense fear, not good).

So Tuesday afternoon, I went out to the back porch for a minute with my camera while Aidan stayed inside to do his homework.

The scene: our back patio and deck

I closed the patio door behind me (which I don't always do because it's a PITA to open/close) and took a step up onto the deck when a SNAKE (I have to type it like I'm yelling it because that's how I feel when I think about them) slithered past me towards the patio door under the grill. Thank goodness I closed the patio door because he might have accidentally gone into the house!

That's about how close it was to me (the grill is directly to the right of the chair)

So naturally I screamed like a crazy person and ran to the far side of the deck, where I promptly look over and see ANOTHER SNAKE slithering into the wood pile by the fence away from the deck.

Duh, wood pile=snake haven. We have plans to move it ASAP to work on our flower bed.

.

I'm terrified because there are SNAKES! ALL AROUND ME! (oh the drama) and I can't get back into the house through the back patio door because in my mind, the SNAKE under the grill is going to jump out and get me. I know, I know, they're supposedly more scared of me than I am of them (WHATEVER, I'll give 'em a run for their money in the scared as crap department) but you never know when you're going to encounter a stupid snake who runs into you our your house in the process of getting away, or a very angry snake who's pissed because his last meal got away from him and your cute little pink toes look like a yummy replacement. Yes, this stuff goes through my head.

Trapped outside!

So I decided to walk all the way around to the front of the house for Aidan to let me in. That is, until I saw ANOTHER SNAKE(!!!) in the flower bed, coiled up with his head up, looking at me, plotting his strike (I think he was the "pissed cause his meal got away" variety).

I wish I had thought to get a picture of the snake coiled up and staring at me,
but I was too busy being hysterical.

Unfortunately, I'm in near hysterics at this point and Aidan is witnessing the whole thing. I'm trying to talk him into opening the patio door for me so I can make a running leap into the house and close the door quickly behind me, but he's too scared to open it. (Hmmm, wonder why?!?)

Between the SNAKE to my right, the SNAKE to my left and the SNAKE in front of me, I had to get out of there so I made a mad dash inside. I had a sick-to-my-stomach feeling from getting so startled and scared, and it took me a while to calm down. By the time I calmed down, I just happened to look out on the patio and saw a SNAKE frickin' AGAIN!

I was so traumatized that I had several nightmares about snakes that night. I'd wake myself up, heart pounding and freaking out, only to go back to sleep and have more nightmares. It was bad for realz.

For the record, these were the "harmless" black snakes, so at least we weren't dealing with copperheads (which Adam has killed in our yard, BTW) and I know they serve a purpose so I'm not on a mission to hunt them down or kill them or anything. I just want them out of my yard and I don't want them on the kids' playset.

It looked like this black rat snake (source)

Also for the record, despite my title, I did go back outside to take pics for the blog (do I get points for dedication to the blog? No? They'd probably be cancelled out by my lack of blogging lately anyway...) but I did carry a big stick and banged on the grill with it to make sure nothing was hiding under there.

I'm ready to fend off any snakes that try to attack!

PS: I know our flower bed, yard and "grass" look like crap, but we've got terrible soil so aerating and reseeding has failed twice for us. I had plans to get out there and weed, patch seed and create a new flower bed, but based on the SNAKE incident, I can't say I'm all that motivated to get out there...