This is one of my favorite snapshots of my children. Belle had just turned two and Zappa was three weeks old.

This picture was taken a week after the snake got into the living room and took shelter under this same sofa.

The denim patches are covering some worn spots. You know, spots where a snake could SUDDENLY POP THROUGH if this should ever happen again. Worn spots where a snake who was living happily in the coil springs of the sofa, slithering in, among, and around the innards, could make like a jack-in-the-box, without warning, popping through those worn spots while we weren’t looking, or emerging while we slept to lay eggs between the folded towels and to crawl all over us in our beds like the snake in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” And Sherlock Holmes not here to save us. No Rikki Tikki Tavi to dance around it before devouring it.

There was no way my babies were going to sit on a sofa wherein a snake could at any time emerge from the springs through the worn spots and over their legs and coil on their little tummies and tickle their arms with that tongue. No way. NO WAY. Not that I was having constant recurring nightmares about such things. . . . .

We didn’t have any money for a new sofa so I tore up a pair of old jeans and patched all the holes with denim. It was ugly, but the sofa was ugly anyway. Rich or poor, people will keep their babies safe one way or another. Poor people just have to be more creative. Rich people just go buy new stuff. I have never had that option. I still don’t.

Those of you who don’t know me well might think I was overreacting. Some of you might think I was being overly protective; after all, a snake could never crawl into the living room and take refuge under the couch. Well, I beg to differ, but I’ve already posted about that so I’ll just not say anything more about it.

Those of you who DO know me well will know exactly why I blocked off all the emergency exits from the interior of the sofa.

Do you know, even now I do not like to lie down on a sofa. Most of the time, I don’t even like to sit on one. I always choose a chair, when I can. And if there is a hard chair available, I will take that. Upholstery and puffy cushions creep me out.

My computer chair is a hard chair, in fact. And when I read or watch my chick flicks in the kitchen, I sit in a hard dinette chair.

I’d rather deal with the hemmorhoids than chance a snake leaping through a tear or one of those recessed buttons. Okay, that’s not possible, but I’m not rational about this issue.

But don’t any of you worry. It’s safe for you to come over. We don’t live in that house any more. We live in another house, where the living room is up a flight of stairs, and we would be able to hear the snake on the hard wood if it tried to climb up to the sofa. And ever since we moved, there seem to be no snakes anywhere around here, even back in the woods. I think there’s a little hobo sign up by the road that warns passing snakes not to even think about it.

Oh, like none of YOU has any irrational fears.

Amazingly, I am not afraid of snakes at all. I’ve picked them up, swung them around, blinded them, hula-hoed them, forced them into bait boxes so a little boy could take them to show-and-tell, and kicked them. As long as they’re outside, I’m fearless.

If they come inside, I will still reign supreme, but after it’s all over with I will sit on a hard wooden chair and shake it, shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture.

It’s been twenty-five years, but sometimes I still have the dream. I still lift a folded towel carefully. I still check under the couch regularly.

And now, so will you. Welcome to my world.