It’s spring. 

So now, besides worrying about getting trapped in a deep-sea submersible, demonic possession, tumbling into space when my tether to the space shuttle is severed, getting eaten by an alligator, getting eaten by a crocodile, the thing that lives in the closet realizing just how often I sleep alone, and chipping my nail polish the moment it’s dry, I also have to worry about reptiles getting into the house. 

It’s happened before. 

It’s happened more than once. 

You know that wall in the Well of Souls? In Raiders of the Lost Ark? The one with the people carved in it? And the snakes coming through their eyes? 

Yeah. 

That’s my house. 

Do you want to know the problem? I’ll tell you the problem. Because the problem isn’t me. 

At all. 

Let’s start with my doors. In the two decades I’ve lived in my house, the doors have never worked. 

The storm doors were never meant for humans to actually, you know, use. 

The pump spring thingie at the bottom of the door? I’ve never had one last longer than a year. 

How many times have I opened my storm door, only to have the wind rip it from my hand because the pump spring thingie at the bottom has sprung from its moorings? 

Well, multiply 365 by 20, and you’re in the neighborhood. 

The screens rip. The locks break. The doors stop closing flush with their frames, bouncing open and closed, open and closed, open and closed as the breeze blows. 

Next is the stream down the street. It’s just right there. In the neighborhood. Nestled between two blocks of houses.  

It’s so dumb. Who ever heard of a stream? In a neighborhood? Like, 20 minutes from Philadelphia’s city limits? No. That’s just ridiculous. 

And of course it’s not only on my running route, but my dog-walking route, too. I can’t tell you how many dead snakes I’ve seen, smooshed into the asphalt by vehicles unknown.  

And before you point out that the snakes are dead, you little glass-is-half-full optimist you, shut it. Because a dead snake is no better than a live snake. 

And yes. I know how important snakes are for the environment. But you know what? Ireland doesn’t have snakes and their environment is no worse than the rest of the planet’s. So just stop. 

A few weeks ago, I was walking my dog. We were next to the curb. Which is next to the grass. Which is next to the stupid stream that decided it just had to be in a neighborhood. Like it’s too good for the country or something. 

There was a dead snake in the grass. And I swear — I swear — it was red, yellow, and black. 

You know the rhyme about them, right? Red next to yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black, you’re OK, Jack.  

No. I did not take the time to assess which of those mnemonics applied to this snake.  

I ran. 

With full recollection of what happened the last time I ran with my dog.  

My last problem is that I live with people. Who, yes, are lovely and loved. The empty nest upon whose precipice I stand is breaking my heart. My husband, whose absence is carefully watched by the thing in the closet plotting my demise, is my soulmate. 

That all being said, they don’t close the broken storm doors properly. 

The storm door, the one at the back of the house — you know it, the one that opens onto the deck — it doesn’t close fully unless the door handle is held down and the door is secured tightly in its frame.  

There are four people in my house. Just one of us closes that door the right way. 

Hi. It’s me. I’m the one of us closing that door the right way. 

Why don’t I replace it, you ask? Well, I have choices. Trips to Scotland and $4.12 used copies of The Hobbit or replace the back door. 

I can’t have all the things. Nobody can have all the things. 

The stream down the street playing VRBO to the world’s reptiles populates said reptiles to my yard. Who see my broken back door bounce-bounce-bouncing open and waltz right into my house. 

After the skink debacle of 2021, a skink again got into the house. The one living on the deck. The one we’ve named Walter White. 

I screeched for my husband. A blood-curdling scream that should be reserved for emergencies.  

I’m not even sorry. 

My husband chased the skink until it disappeared under a chest of drawers.  

“I don’t see it,” he shrugged. 

“That can’t be it!” I said. “You can’t just leave it. I can’t live here with a skink!” 

Walter White then dashed across the laundry room. My husband scooped him out onto the deck. 

When the weather warmed up this year, and afternoons on the deck beckoned, the door again was frequently, frustratingly, left ajar. 

I lost it. “If an animal gets in here,” I said to my family, “I am making it everyone’s problem. I don’t care if you’re working. I don’t care where you are. I don’t care if it’s a possum or a skink or a mouse. I don’t care. It will be everyone’s problem. Everyone’s. I am not fixing this. Just close the door. Close it. How hard is it? Just close it!” 

Today, I was doing chores. Trash out to the garage. Carry the broom from the front of the house out to the deck. Let the dog out, because he hates when I clean. 

The door — it was open. Banging in the breeze. 

I left it open.  

Don’t tell anyone. 

Or I’ll make it your problem, too.