Kent and I clean two houses every other week.  I take my feather duster, because I love feather dusting things.  At Miss Joy's home, I climb on her big poofy sofa (after removing my shoes) and dust the window, curtains, and behind the couch.  Not long after we first started cleaning there, my feather duster lost a part of one of the feathers behind her couch.  The next time her great-grandkids were over they saw that feather and thought it was a snake.  She and I have giggled over that several times over the last couple of years.

(As an aside, and not really part of the story I am really telling, one day I left my feather duster outside her front door.  I put it there when I was finished with it so that I could grab it on my way out.  It was tucked in the corner between a potted plant and her outside wall.  I forgot to grab it, and she saw it the next day and thought a chicken had gotten stuck in there!  We really have giggled over that one.)

But today, I had an opposite experience from Joy's grandchildren.  I was vacuuming at Nikki's house, while she and her mother Kathy, and her son Brooks were sitting in the living room waiting for us to finish so they could pack up and leave for a barrell race down south somewhere.  As I was vacuuming in the corner by the door, I thought I saw an escaped feather.  It kept "blowing" and wouldn't be vacuumed up.  So I bent over to look at it, and said, "Oh, I think it's a worm."  Then Brooks ran over and looked.  He said, "It's a snake."  And, shore 'nuff, it was a little black snake.  Nikki and her mom didn't even get off the couch.  They were cool and clam as a lamb about it.  So, I grabbed a paper towel from the sink, wrapped it around the snake, kind of pinched it, and threw it away.  I hope it doesn't come out and crawl into one of their beds while they are out of town!  I wish I had just moved it outside into the yard, but I was a bit thrown off by the whole experience and didn't think of that until later.