Snake story

Maybe you read about the time our family ran off the potential missionary recruits. This time I thought I'd describe how we ran off a local maid. Is there a pattern here?

The year was 1995. I can tell you the exact date, because it was the very day Bekah was born. Yes, the same Bekah, the illegal alien who shouted the forbidden word "GUN" at the airport. The one we thought had leukemia when she was four. Also the one we left behind at the taco stand. Poor child. I didn't realize she had so many traumatic experiences at such a tender age! Being a missionary kid has its special hazards.

Bekah was born here at our house in Mitla with the help of a local doctor and her mother, a midwife. In all the confusion, the boys (age 6, 8, and 9) burst into my room all excited about a snake they had caught in the desert. I'm sure in my postpartum oblivion I made some vague remark like "Oh, that's nice." No one paid much attention to them at all until we heard whispers in their room at bedtime. "Where is it?" and "How could it have gotten away?" and other alarming questions.

The house was turned upside down, but no snake was uncovered that night. Unfortunately no one could describe it well enough to rule out the possibility we might have a poisonous serpent on the loose. Terrified the snake would get their brand new baby sister, the boys made sure the mosquito net was firmly zipped around the bassinet. Chris slept in his shoes for fear of finding the snake in the dark with his bare feet. Eventually we gave up hunting for it and assumed optimistically it had found its way out through the crack under the laundry room door.

Meanwhile my mom had insisted we hire a maid for the first few weeks of adjusting to five children (Five! What were we thinking?). Having a maid was a huge blessing while it lasted. The last day that woman ever stepped foot in our house, ironically, was the same day she came to me in a panic, stuttering so badly she couldn't get a single word out. By the frantic expression on her face and the first stammered syllable, "c-c-c-cu-cu-cu" before she ran from our house, I deduced she must have discovered the missing "culebra" which turned out to be nothing but a harmless garter snake.

Good help is so hard to come by....

For those of you who always hesitated to come down because of those three mischievous boys, let me remind you that they are all grown up and safely out of the house now. No one left to climb on the roof and dump a bucket of lizards on your head, like they used to do to scare teams that came down. No one to collect scorpions, snip the tips off the stinger, and freak you out by letting them crawl up their arms (or yours). No one to show off live lizard earrings dangling from their ear lobes. Hopefully Jonathan won't read this blog and get any wild ideas. Having one boy surrounded by sisters is a lot less rowdy and dangerous than having them three in a row, you know? I highly recommend it.

We don't even have a stash of gun powder lying around any more. So what's your excuse for not visiting now? The table is plenty big.... Taco Brown and other thrills await you. Come on down!