I think I need to apologize to my newspaper delivery woman, and maybe my mail carrier.
Early one morning a few weeks ago, I got my newspaper off my front porch (right at the door, because, as I have said before, I have the best newspaper carrier in the world). It was still dark, and I didn’t notice anything unusual.
Later that morning, my husband asked me if I saw anything else when I got the paper. He opened the front door, and lying on the porch was a little snake — a fake snake.
My first thought was my poor newspaper carrier. I glanced around and didn’t see her sprawled out in the yard anywhere. My second thought was to suspect one of my neighbors, who has a history of playing pranks on people.
Just the day before, a woman in our distribution office showed me a huge snake that a newspaper carrier had seen on his route, lying on top of a newspaper tube.
“That could give you a heart attack,” she said.
I immediately mentioned my brother, as I do anytime the subject of snakes comes up. He has had a phobia of them for as long as I can remember. He won’t look at them in the zoo; he won’t hunt a golf ball in the woods. He jokingly vowed never to visit me again after I told him I saw a tiny snake in our front yard.
For the next few days, the little rubber snake showed up in different places in my house. My husband put it under my pillow. I put it in his sock drawer. My husband put it in my underwear drawer. I buried it under some of his shorts. One day, its head was peeking over the top of the computer screen.
It never scared me because it isn’t a realistic-looking snake. Our older son still has a huge snake that we bought him at Silver Dollar City when he was a kid. People recoiled as he walked around the park with it hanging on his neck.
When I saw the wife of the man I suspected of starting all this, I mentioned the snake, and she admitted he was the culprit. She said he drove by our house and was surprised to see the snake still there that first morning.
So, on the way to work early one morning, I left the little guy on top of his brick mailbox. I’m pretty sure I broke 14 federal regulations by doing that. I also worried that I would give the mail carrier a heart attack, but I figured the neighbor would discover it before she did.
The next day, my husband found the snake under the mail INSIDE our mailbox. I’m pretty sure my prankster neighbor committed about 140 federal violations.
We brought the snake back in and forgot about it. Our older son came to use our computer, and I found the snake under a kitchen towel that day. It didn’t scare me. Not like the April Fool’s Day when he wrapped plastic wrap over the toilet seat and had the snake suspended there. My screams could be heard for miles.
I was talking in the office about the big snake that was on the top of the newspaper box. A co-
worker told me it was a fake snake. I enlarged the photo and, sure enough, it was a fake snake. I’m sure at 5 a.m., the newspaper carrier didn’t take time to inspect it.
I’ve been meaning to give my newspaper carrier a tip; I still feel guilty that I didn’t give her enough at Christmas.
This time, I’ll give a little extra for pain and suffering, and possibly taking 10 years off her life.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.