Surprise visitor

Mum sent me a text message this morning asking that I call her to help calm her down. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to see first thing, when you're only half awake - or any time, really. There were a multitude of things that could possibly have happened, and I wondered which it was. It turns out it was nothing I expected.

She got up early and went to the laundry to do a load of washing. She got part of the way through putting things in the machine when she saw one of these right beside the machine.

That guy is an Eastern Brown snake. Do they react to movement? Um, yeah. Are they venomous? One of the most venomous in the world. So, naturally, mum freaked...then phoned around for a snake handler to come and take him away.

She had to pay $50 (it was more than that, but that was all the cash she had in the house) for the guy to collect it. I get that he's a private person and has expenses (he had to drive from an hour away), but surely that kind of service should be subsidised by the local council, or something. But that's a soap box item for another time.

Anyway, mum's fine, albeit a little spooked. She was pissed at first, when I laughed, because I like snakes, but felt better when I told her how my housemate locked me outside the house with a massive spider. So we're even.