Snake Charmer?

I had forgotten how much I HATE SNAKES until I found one in the basement! Of course it was on drill weekend when Phil was in Salt Lake, Jeremiah had gone to Burley to work and of course Stevie, Rich, Rachel & Chance are off in their own little corners of the world. There I was, face-to-face (I guess, if I could have seen its face) with a snake. At first I thought it was a piece of brown caulking curled up by the log. Seemed weird that it would be there, so I investigated with a flashlight and absolutely no movement. THEN when I came back from "my cleaning rampage" it was slithering across the floor. Of course I screamed and had to tell someone so I called Rachel. A lot of help she was! She told me to put it in a box and take it outside - little did she know that one of us was leaving that house DEAD and I didn't plan on it being me. Then she suggested that I go get Wes & Marie...yeah! Where would it be then? So, I bucked up and got brave!!! Got the shovel (from the laundry room hole:) and decided to do what my dad did with rattlesnakes - I was going to chop it's head off! Sounds good huh? Well, I knew where it's head was because of the direction it was moving and I proceeded to "chop & KILL". One slight problem that I hadn't anticipated - it wouldn't chop in to!!! Of course I had started this and I couldn't stop...so I kept on hitting it with the shovel head until I decided that it couldn't have survived this ordeal. So I waited and I watched. Nothing - but now I could see it's mouth open - could have possibly had fangs too?!?! Then the real test of balancing it on my shovel and getting it OUT OF THE HOUSE! And with skill and precise handling I got the stupid thing out! WHEW!!! You look at the photos and decide ---it was a snake! It might as well have been a phython! Phil actually describes it pretty well - looked like a big night crawler. Hey, the picture is pretty impressive, huh?