Reptile tresspasser under Sister’s bed clinging to her headboard and leg while Sisters plan his escort outside…ASAP!
If you live in the woods, expect snakes. If you live in a cabin, expect them to get inside now and again. If you’re a cloistered nun, expect to find them under your bed….wait, what?!
Yes, while we have had in our history many snake encounters, almost always colorful in the retelling, they never fail to add some excitement to our already interesting lives. [News Bulletin: our lives are never boring; we live with God!] The reptile visits can also raise some blood pressure. And maybe some volume to our speech.
A large snake (not a copperhead or rattler, just a poor lost slithery soul) got into Mater Dei house and meandered into one Sister’s cell. There followed a forty minute exercise in flashlight finding, battery finding, broom finding, grabber finding by three Nuns with multiple attempts to coordinate the tricky process of flushing out the snake to be caught and brought outside without driving it up and into the bedding. (For those of you who will now have nightmares about that scenario, we are sorry, very sorry.) The snake however had other plans (like survival) and did not believe our assurances that we wouldn’t kill it, or hurt it, if it just cooperated. Probably heard rumors about some rattlers that had to be shot in NM and the infamous copperhead incident at Christ, Prince of Peace Retreat Center that forever relegated a very nice kitchen knife to garden duty only. Eventually once flushed out, this trespasser was gracefully swept out of doors into the driveway where the grabber could finally work and escort him to the woods edge for a gentle flying lesson. We’d love to hear his side of the story when he met up again with his friends. Hopefully, he’s not telling them of wonderful, amusement park-like rides on brooms and grabbers.