The Banana Snake

For Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Knowing it’d been a lazy rainy day, a day of reading and napping, by the time the evening came I had to get out of the camp for a little exercise. Hooking Ziva to her leash, the two of us set out for a walk. But being a puppy, she was a little nervous on the camp road. Each car that passed us, made my pup tremble. So we turned back to return to our lot. Unhooking her from her leash, we started to roam around the woods at camp. Soon Ziva jumped into the woods only to jump back out with something that I could have sworn was a snake! I tried not to screech and chased a very excited puppy as she made a run for the shoreline with this thing flopping around in her mouth.

Various scenarios flashed through my mind. In one, Ziva brought the snake to me as a gift, dropping it at my feet. In another, I saw Ziva being bit, yelping as she tried to figure out what had hurt her. The one scenario I did not see was the one where I discovered the snake was actually a banana peel, carelessly discarded by one of the kids a few days ago.

Of course I was pretty darn happy to discover the snake... wasn’t. But Ziva, who continued to proudly race around, trying to keep her prize away from me, surely gave me a workout tonight. I surely got that exercise I’d needed as I laughed and darted in and around trees with that silly pup for a good half hour.