Jac's a dyl boy...

My wife collects snakes. Not big ones - otherwise I wouldn't be living here. Just little ones. I've learned to live with them and actually, they're kind of cute. But NOT when they're loose in the house.

Such was the case years ago when one of hers pulled a Houdini routine and vanished. This one's name was "Jack Asp". Jack was non-venomous and completely harmless. We looked for that snake for days. We set "safe traps" in the heating ducts of the house. No snake.

We stored an electric typewriter underneath a dresser in one of the bedrooms. I joked one day that I was moving out if that snake were to show up typing on that typewriter, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work... etc." The line, of course, is from the movie the Shining in which Shelly Duvall finds her maniacal husband, Jack's (Jack Nicholson) typewritten novel, which consists of hundreds of pages of nothing but the line "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." typed over and over and over again. It's an EXTREMELY freaky scene in the film.

It was an extremely freaky moment when I pulled our typewriter out to look on it, "just for the hell of it" and there laid that damn snake, Jack, all curled up. No typing, thank God. He was alive and well and gave us one of those non-committal, bored looks as only a snake can give before being returned to the slammer.

Oddly enough, for the last 6 months, my health has made it impossible for me to clean up the back yard, so we've got a nice little hedge/maze thing going on back there. Thank God the axe handle rotted and broke in two last year. I DO have my Grandpa's old handsaw however, but I guess that wouldn't have the same terrifying effect - SHUNGKA, SHUNGKA, SHUNGKA, SHUNGKA, SHUNGKA - WHEW, THIS IS TIRING - HERRRRRRRRE'S JOHNNY! SHIT, NEVER MIND, I'VE GOTTA TAKE A BREAK.