The Fun-Sucker and the Un-Pet That We Cannot Find

Several people have commented on my use of the term "fun-sucker." I first heard it in the movie Freaky Friday. Lindsey Lohan tells her screen mom, Jamie Lee Curtis, that she "sucks the fun out of everything." The mom says, "No, I don't!" only to be met with the term, as spat from the lips of her her teenage daughter, "FUN-SUCKER."



According to MY teenage daughter, *I* am a fun-sucker. I'm submitting my photo to the Urban Dictionary website so they'll have pictorial evidence for their definition.

Picture of one Fun-Suckerus domesticus

In other news, today while I was taking a break from painting (and checking in on the new construction across the street), I received a call from screaming girls. "THERE'S A SNAKE IN THE HOUSE!!!" Thankfully, the owner and his father-in-law were at the new construction across the street and they grabbed lethal snake killing rakes and ran with me to my house.

Brooke, my animal-loving child, the one who shows no fear of anything at all (except for perhaps an elevator), was ON TOP OF THE COUNTER! (Okay, when the frog got in the house, I only jumped up on a chair. And we won't discuss the fact that I'm not agile enough to scale the counter in a single bound.)

The men and I moved stuff out of the laundry room (the Place Into Which the Snake Ran). We got a flashlight and they looked under the washer and dryer. "Gee, Ginger. You've got a mess under here," says New Neighbor. I can tell he is not going to be my Favorite Neighbor at all.

Anyway, we look and prod and poke and rattle, but we didn't scare up the snake. (Let me clarify this "we." The part of the "we" that is pictured above as the Fun-Sucker stayed outside the laundry room door. I was watching in case the snake sneaked out from behind the snake-hunting men. Someone had to be the Watch Woman. I figured it might as well be me.) So the men gave a chuckle and left. Wimps.

Steve is now in bed. He's not at all afraid that the little 12" black Snake in the Laundry Room will sneak out in the middle of the night and leap on us while we sleep unsuspectingly in our beds to suck the very life from us. No. He's oblivious to this horror. So here I am, exhausted and trying to put up a brave front for the girls, "No, Brooke. If you stuff a small towel in that hole in the wall, a snake couldn't get in past it." Never mind that she's probably blocking the snake's way OUT of the house, further angering it and sending it on it's blood-seeking rampage for unsuspecting sleeping Cajuns.

It'll be a LONG night. I guess it wouldn't be fair for me to sneak away to the Holiday Inn Express down the road. I could have a wake-up call for early morning and be back before Steve gets up. It is an idea. But I probably won't do it, me being a fun-sucker and all. :^)