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Yesterday, I was replacing an old, leaky, 10 gallon (or so) per flush toilet in my house with a new, barely uses any water whatsoever model. Whoever built my house did not put shutoff valves at any toilet or sink, so I have to shut off the water to our whole house to fix anything. The shutoff is in the crawlspace.

I shut off the water, leaving the crawlspace open, and replaced the toilet without too much fanfare. At least no more than than is normally required for replacing a toilet with nine and seven-year-old helpers. I even put in a shutoff valve so the poor sap who buys my house and decides that plumbers are too expensive can replace his toilet with one that doesn't use any water whatsoever without shutting off the water in the crawlspace. (How's that for a run-on?)

Since we need to take the old toilet out to the garbage on Tuesday night, I asked Beth if I could just put it in the front yard so I wouldn't have to carry it as far on trash day. You can tell she's a mom of children who make "forts" and "hideouts" and other structures all throughout the yard since the answer I got was "Whatever." I went ahead and put it out back with the rest of our trash.

Since it was raining outside, I pretty much darted outside and into the crawlspace. I turned the water on and started to head out, only to see a copperhead guarding the entrance to the crawlspace. I'm not sure if he was there when I climbed in or he was hiding in some leaves waiting to ambush me. Either way, he was plainly visible now. I started yelling for someone to come outside and help when suddenly, another snake struck at me from behind. All I felt was a push on my back. It didn't get any fangs in. With that, I came completely unglued and did a lot of yelling and a crabwalk across the crawlspace floor that would make any junior high gym teacher proud.

Meanwhile, no one in the house knew where I was. All they knew is that they heard me doing a bunch of yelling. After what seemed like a really long time, my son came out and threw me a stick to fend them off. About the same time, the snakes either got scared or felt sorry for me. Either way, they slithered off under my well pressure tanks in the crawlspace so I could make my exit.

So, now I have at least one poisonous snake in my crawlspace. (The other was just a black snake.)

One more thing, my shutoff valve leaks. It's just a couple drops of water per hour. I'm not fixing it.