I remember the day it arrived on a big truck. My missionary parents had just moved to South Texas, and a very kind family had sent them a truck load of much needed furniture. We were particularly excited about the avocado green couch. It was a hide-a-bed!
There were six in my family and our house had four bedrooms. I was always the odd one out. We also had lots of people staying with us and even living with us at times. So inevitably I would be moved to the couch to sleep, although I never used the hide-a-bed feature. Pretty soon I found that I preferred my couch to doubling with one of my sisters. The couch was my own.
One day when I was a teenager my sister and I were playing a card game in front of my couch. The game was very intense and we were very competitive, so I didn’t notice her sudden absence. Finally, I looked up and she was standing on the couch pointing and making unintelligible noises. “What are you doing?” I laughed at her. She continued to point and grunt. Finally I saw it. There was a multi-colored snake squirming over our cards! In no time flat, I too was on the couch. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded indignantly.
“I was trying to,” she finally said.
Well, the snake disappeared, and we didn’t really think about it much except to recall the incident and laugh.
Fast forward about twenty years. All of us siblings, now married, came back to celebrate Christmas together one last time before my parents sold the old house. I was particularly planning my goodbye to my beloved green couch. The way the sleeping arrangements turned out, my brother and his wife ended up in the living room and decided to pull open the little-used hide-a-bed of my green couch. I heard their gasps from the next room.
“Come here. Ya’ll have got to see this!” my brother called.
There under the hide-a-bed was the biggest, longest snake skin I have ever seen! Eww! All those years they told me there were no monsters under the bed. That was only partially true. There were snakes!!!
Sometimes ignorance is, indeed, bliss. You’d have spent many more nights doubling up with your sister, unable to sleep on your cherished couch, lamenting the discovery of the snake skin. I’m just awed that you carried on as though nothing had happened: “the snake disappeared, and we didn’t really think about it much . . .” I wouldn’t have been able to get it out of my mind. Ever! I’d be forever after checking in every shoe, under everything that might conceal a moving creature. In fact, I think I’ll put my feet up on the coffee table now. You never know.
Ha ha! Yeah it does make you wonder doesn’t it! I guess I was kind of used to many of God’s more unsightly creatures out in the country.
How ghastly!
Oh my goodness. I wouldn’t have been able to say anything either! I would have just keeled over from fright right there on the floor! The very mention of snakes makes my heart race.
I know. I don’t like them either. The thought of them living under my couch still gives me the shivers!
oh man! I’m glad you were able to forget about it since he lived under your bed! HAHA! I don’t mind snakes when they’re outside or in a cage. But if one was loose in my house… That would give me the heebie jeebies!
Out of sight out of mind I guess? 🙂
Good pest control.
Uh, yeah. No sleeping for me in that room until that snake was found and put back outside. Thank you anyway! 🙂 Not afraid of ’em but … they do not belong free ranging in my space! lol
Yes I suppose they are good pest control BUT definitely belong in the great outdoors! 🙂
When we were moving from NM to CA we decided to pitch the couch we were using. Patrick tipped it end over end out the house not caring if it broke. A very flat mouse fell out of the couch. I was freaked out that 1) there was a mouse in our couch and 2) I probably sat on it and smashed it flat. Ewww to the snake to.
Hmm. Maybe we should just all be doing routine cleaning under our couches!
I knew there was more than fluff under those cushions! haha 😀
Didn’t Matt sleep on the hide-a-bed when we visited your parent’s place on our class trip? 😉
You know, I think he did… 🙂
Ok, Esther, I had to laugh because, not only do we share the same birthday, I ALSO have a GREEN couch! I hope, however, I do NOT have a snake dead, alive or otherwise, inside of it!
My green couch has been around about 12-14 years, and I am looking to replace it soon!
Bernice
http://bernicewood.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/this-is-your-life/
Bernice that IS funny! Now if you were you I would be tuning that thing over–tonight! 🙂