I do not understand why reptiles feel they need to visit me, but there was indeed a snake who visited my classroom yesterday morning!
I arrived at school a little before 7 a.m. to get ready for choir rehearsal. As I walked into the building, I was talking on the phone with my dad, and 2 of my fourth grade boys who are in choir went in the building at the same time as I did, too. As I was chatting with my dad and unlocking my classroom door, I looked down and saw what I thought was a fake snake right beside my door. I started laughing and told my dad that some student was apparently trying to scare me by putting a rubber snake outside my classroom. My dad thought that was hilarious and reminded me that Anne (of Green Gables) also had a student put a snake in her classroom. As I continued to unlock my door (which always seems to take a long time), I kept glancing at the apparent rubber snake. I started to sense that the "rubber" snake wasn't really rubber, so I quickly say good-bye to my dad and jumped away from my door.
I called my 2 students over to look at the snake, and together we tried to figure out if it was real or not. One student pointed to my lunch box and suggested that we use something from it as bait to see if it would eat food, while the other student got down on his hands and knees and crawled directly up to the snake. Suddenly, he leapt back and screamed, "Mrs. Rinn, it's not fake!" At this point, I should have acted professionally by calming the boys down and finding the janitor myself. Instead, I screamed at one of the boys to go find the janitor while I crouched on the floor, hiding behind the other boy. Yes, I admit, I hid behind a nine year old.
The janitor swept the snake into her dustpan, and from there she put it in a cup with a lid to show the principal. Although I am glad the janitor took care of it for me, I am still concerned (as are all the other teachers in the school, since I made sure to scare the entire staff with my story) about how it got into the building. Since I have the closest classroom to the outside entrance, I'm hoping it just slithered in accidentally when one of the doors was opened; but, no matter what, I hope I never see a snake in my classroom--or anywhere else for that matter!--again.
P.S. I'm sure some of you are wondering what kind of snake it was. To me, any kind of snake is terrifying, so I don't want to take away from the drama and intensity of this story by saying that it was a garden snake that was a little more than a foot long. STILL--would you want to start your day off this way?
I must admit that I don't think I would have handled myself any better - I might have had to admit to hiding behind a 5 year old! My Mom also had a run-in with a snake last week - in their living room! It must be that time of year (though I must say that does not thrill me as someone with a dog door and a construction site across the street!) I think this story has officially convinced me to keep the dog door covered when not in use. . . Glad to hear you survived :)
ReplyDeleteIt's OK that you hid behind one of your students. Remember when I was counseling at CPBC & there was a mouse in our cabin? I screamed and jumped out of my bed onto another camper's bunk.
ReplyDeleteYour snake story actually makes me feel better about that. :)