Talk about a good idea gone bad, this is it.  A few summers ago I was walking in front of our home when I noticed something moving in the bushes.  That something was a snake, long and large.  I watched as the snake slithered under the house through an air vent.  Now I’ve really got a problem.  I crawl under the house now and then just to check on things but not any more.  Not with this forty foot Anaconda lurking in the dark.  OK so it wasn’t a forty foot Anaconda but it is dark under there.
   I started to close the air vent but that was about the only way he was going to get out or maybe it was a she or a she with babies,OH NO!!!.  I needed another idea.  I remember my dad telling me that a snake wouldn’t cross a line of sulfur, so off the Feed and Seed I headed. The store owner didn’t know about the sulfur idea but recommended a product called “Snake Away”.  As I read the instructions I noticed that the box smelled just like mothballs and sure enough it was made from the same stuff.  The only difference was that Snake Away was about twenty times more expensive.   I decided to buy mothballs.  It’s bad when you’re afraid of snakes and cheap too.  Off to the grocery store I go to buy mothballs.  I bought two boxes of one hundred and I was so proud of myself but that thought wouldn’t last long.
   I got home and went straight to work throwing mothballs through each of the air vents around the house until all two hundred were gone.  Surely this would drive the snake out.  All I had to do was wait.  Everything was OK until the mothball fumes started coming through the floor.  You’ve never smelled such a smell.  It was horrible and getting worse by the minute.  Sandy was getting sick and very upset.  When she could stand it no more she demanded that I go under the house and get all the mothballs out.  Using a few choice words that I can’t use here I simply explained that there was no way in hell that I was going under there. We’ll sell the house and move before I go under there with that forty foot Anaconda that was probably high on mothballs by now.  She called the Poison Control Center and they confirmed that she may be allergic to the fumes and should leave the house until the smell went away.  How long would that take?  Maybe weeks!  She was ready to pack up Harley and Murphy and leave.
   I had no choice.  I had to face the Anaconda and the fumes.  Armed with a flashlight and a plastic bag under the house I went.  I crawled on my belly like a reptile searching for each and every mothball.  I was scared to death that I was going to come face to face with this man-eating serpent.  I treasured the first mothball like a precious stone as I placed it in my bag. Only a hundred and ninety-nine to go.  For almost two hours I crawled and prayed and finally my prayers were answered as I found number two hundred. I was never so happy to leave a place in all my life. I am happy to say that all is well and once the mothballs were removed we all felt much better.  As for the snake I don’t know where he is but I do know that he doesn’t have to smell mothballs anymore.  So if you see me and notice small holes in my clothing it’s just the moths taking over now that mothballs are no longer allowed in our house.

                                                                                Indiana Carl