Yesterday we had to have the plumber come out.

We had to have the plumber come out because for some bizarre reason the hose bib on the front of the house developed a GREAT ENORMOUS LEAK over the winter and every time I turned the water on half of it came out the hose and the other half came out of everywhere else.

Enter the nice Ukrainian plumber. He’s a good guy, he’s done a fair amount of work for us, he’s good, he’s not horribly expensive, and he’s reliable. I like him.

Also we can talk tomatoes, edged weapons, and Subarus while he’s here so I’m never *too* put out when we have to call him.

NUP was done with his work yesterday morning and came into the house to get paid. I wrote him a check and on his way down the stairs he noticed, for the first time, the snake tank in the living room.

“What’s in there” he asked “a turtle?”

“No,” I replied “that’s Sally.”

“Sally?”

“Yes, Sally. Salisbury Snake.”

It was then I realized that NUP is one of those folks who is a little wiggy about snakes. Always being eager to reduce peoples’ anxiety about reptiles I went over to the tank and started to unearth the snake so he could touch her and find out that instead of cold and slimy, snakes tend to be warm and dry.

“Is she dangerous?”

“Oh no. Sally is a Ball Python. They’re a small African constrictor. They eat mice and they’re very placid, even tempered snakes.”

At which point Sally, whose flowerpot I had just picked up, reared up and bit me in the hand. 😯
And since I had skipped work on Monday to go see the hand specialist and have a couple of tendons injected, that particular hand has been a little inflamed and the blood vessels somewhat larger than they are usually.

Which meant that when Sally nailed me in _exactly_ the spot that had been injected four days ago, I started bleeding like a stuck pig.
I don’t think I reduced NUP’s anxiety about reptiles at all.

It was, however, a decent reminder that I needed to go to the snake snack store and purchase a half dozen mice.