A Terror Unleashed

Have you ever had a moment when your life passed before your eyes? Marcymommy calls it desensitization, but I call it kastle-sponsored torture. So I'm innocently gnawing on a piece of toy (NatalieMonster always leaves toys in pieces, that way there are more toys) and looking just oh-so-cute and adoptable. This horrible black snake uncoils from its hook on beside the popcorn-giver (i.e. microwave); before it so much as touches the ground I'm under the bed at the back of the house. Nothing happens for several minutes. Marcymommy kneels beside the bed, no snake in her hands, so I come out for cuddles. Back in the living room, all is quiet, for now. I don't see the snake, but it is not back on its hook with the other snakes that belong to the resident monsters. Oh, it's so stealthy, but I have really big eyes that I can bug out, the better to take in all the sights. Then, on a return trip from outside, I trounce my way to the living room and spot it--coiled menacingly at the foot of the entry landing. You know, it's really impolite to laugh when someone freaks out and jumps sideways into the passing resident housemonsters and then they retaliate with a nose-shove and you bounce involuntarily back toward the snake. Nevertheless, the snake never moved, not even once. It never moved while I was looking, yet it managed to innocently sidle its way around the house. For days this went on, and I began to become suspicious, then paranoid. I was being stalked by a snake, and Marcymommy didn't even seem to notice! Yet, it never made a move toward me...curious. I began to relax. Big mistake.

One day Marcymommy picked me up and smiled a smile that has always meant she has been up to something, up to absolutely no good. The motionless snake lay on the floor beside some luckless toys, and I realized at that moment, that Marcymommy was the puppetmaster, and had orchestrated quite the coup. In one fell swoop the snake was hooked to my collar, locked in good and tight, its venom called 'obedience training.' Everywhere I ran, this stupid thing followed, refusing to be deterred. At one point Marcymommy grabbed hold of one end, but I knew I wasn't saved. Rather than detach the snake, she gently pulled on her end and all of a sudden I found myself walking toward her. Oh, but I don't come so easily--I screamed and headed for the nearest shelter, behind the glider chair. She offered a home-made doggie biscuit, and I thought 'snakes don't eat biscuits' so I ran out to get it, and the stupid thing followed me! By this point I thought I might need psychiatric help...or medication. Marcymommy was kind enough not to laugh but cuddled me instead though she did not detach the snake for the longest time. I'm proud to say I did not succumb to the snake this day.

*editor's note: the Queen does not think she needs leash-training (i.e. the snake in the story), as it does not serve any purpose that she can see, and lest you think she was traumatized, as soon as it comes off she curls her tail over her back and runs a victory lap around the house