Nobody Knows the Trouble He's Seen, Nobody Knows My Horror

Tuesday evening, Hick came in from mowing grass, and said he was getting in Poolio before supper. He declared that he would cook for himself (a fresh 20-pack of hot dogs awaited on FRIG II's bottom shelf) when he came in. I puttered around the kitchen, slicing him some strawberries, before warming up not-hot-dogs for myself. I sat down for a few minutes in the La-Z-Boy, thinking Hick's return was imminent. When he didn't arrive in the next 10 minutes, I went out on the back porch looking for him.

Poolio was EMPTY! Not empty of water, mind you. Empty of Hick. Not a ripple. No Hick in the water, no Hick sitting on the deck, no Hick walking through the yard, no sound of Hick riding on the Gator to dry off. Huh. That was a curious turn of events. Was this just a ruse to throw me off his trail? Was Hick dipping his appendages in some other woman's Poolio?

I went back inside to get my own supper ready. I was mid-dip in the quart of slaw when something caught my eye through the open mini blinds of the three kitchen windows.

HICK, in only tighty-whities and camouflage Crocs, was shuffling around the porch, headed for the steps down to Poolio! AND, he had the nerve to peer in the window as if to inquire what in the Not-Heaven I was doing!

As you might imagine, the horror of this vision stopped my supper preparations. More horrifying yet, Hick came in through the laundry room door, and stood at the edge of the kitchen in all his glory.

"I thought you were swimming. I went out to talk to you, and you were gone."

"There was a SNAKE in the pool!"

"You ran pretty far away."

"I didn't run away! I threw it out! It must have been this long! [Arms outstretched, about two feet.] I think it was a copperhead. I guess it was in the big blue hose I pulled in to plug in the skimmer. I seen it, and it seen me, and it got up under the rim of the pool. I trapped it in the net, and threw it out."

"Did you kill it?"

"No. I was in the pool!"

"You were walking around the porch!"

"Oh. I needed that other part of the skimmer. The part that hangs down on the bottom. Its hose was hanging over by my lawnmower under the porch, so I had to walk around and get it."

"Where's the snake?"

"I don't know. In the yard somewhere."

"Did it have a rattle?"

"I don't think so. I wasn't looking that close. There's copperheads around, though."

"Yeah. You usually find them in pairs..."

Prospective camera crews, you're missing a lot of footage by not following Hick around.