A snake in Florida

[Squigie]

I ran back across this today. I don't remember what I originally wrote it for. The short, casual format makes me think it was for an online forum, but I'm not sure.
But the story is true.

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Bob in Florida

When I lived in Florida, there was a Ribbon Snake that lived at the base of one of the trees in my back yard.
In the beginning, he was a cute little guy - just 14" long, or so, and he liked munching on worms and little grasshoppers.

One day, I unintentionally smacked him with the weed eater. His tail was abbreviated by about four inches. Blood everywhere. Guts hanging out. I had to untangle him from the cutting line ... and he slithered under the fence fast enough that I couldn't actually catch him. I felt bad, and he was as good as dead.

A few months later, the "grass" was short enough to actually run the mower. As I run the mower around the tiny yard, I see that damned snake, truncated tail and all, working through the grass, trying to catch the mower.
I stop the mower, grab the snake, and throw him over the fence to keep history from repeating itself (grassy strip on the side of a very-low-traffic road).

Not two minutes later, I'm on the other side of the yard, feel an impact, and hear the "thwuck" sound of something "squishy" getting eaten by a lawnmower. I stop the blade, move the machine, and find the snake slithering off through the grass, while another 1-1/2" of his tail sits squirming in blood.
Dude. Seriously?

A few weeks later... I'm on the back patio (screened in porch) working on my room mate's transfer case for his Blazer, when I see the snake, now looking very unnaturally stubby, up in his favorite tree, eating wasps from a big ol' nest. "Sweet. Maybe I can run the weed eater without hurting him..."

Fire it up, run it around the edge of the yard, knock down some 3-foot tall grass in the middle (sh** grows fast and tall in Florida), make sure the snake is still busy with wasps, come in for the base of the trees, and the snake drops out of the tree and right into the whirlwind of cutting line. Again, I had to untangle him. And, again, he was messed up. No body parts missing, but major cuts all over and probably some broken bones. He survived before, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt...

A few more weeks later, I'm back out on the patio, working on a PTO box for the same transfer case, when I see something moving towards me. It's that stupid snake.
He's covered in black scars, head to truncation, and his 'neck' is stuck with his head at about a 30 degree angle to the left of the body. He slithers over near me, eats a black widow that I hadn't even seen on the Oxy/Acetylene torch next to me, and curls up in the corner until I go in at sunset. I named him Bob.

Just a couple days later, I'm back out on the patio, this time doing paint prep on parts from a boat trailer.
I'm grinding away on some rusty brackets, when I see something odd out of the corner of my eye. It's Bob, yet again. And it takes me a minute to figure out what's up. He's wriggling around in the shower of sparks from the grinder. As the sparks move, Bob relocates, and then wriggles and wiggles as hot sparks rain down on him.
When I finish and start putting things away, he squeezes under the screen door and heads back into the long grass.

That weekend, I'm at the side of the house, screwing with a little "Pocket Rocket" mini bike. Bob comes slithering under the chain link gate, rubs on the tires of the bike, drags his crooked head across some engine parts on the ground, and tucks himself under the lid of my open tool kit with his head sticking out.
I get the bike back together, fire it up, take it for a ride, and come back to find Bob bathing in my beer that he knocked over.

The next day, I'm headed to work when I see in my rear-view mirror some black and yellow stripes wiggling around on the tailgate of my truck.
Just about the time that I recognize Bob, he manages to get over the tailgate and fly off into traffic behind me. Certain death. Bob had a good run. But that 55 mph traffic was certain death.

I never saw Bob again. But I assume that he was an adrenaline junky that just wanted a beer before his last hoorah.