I put a snake in her bed. And then I paid for it.

So last night I got the chance to catch up with some old friends. We sat around reminiscing about the stupid stuff we used to do together...or rather, the stupid stuff I would do while they watched, and inevitably the snake story was brought up...

I've never really been known for tolerating other peoples' freak-outs very well...I freak-out enough on my own, is it really fair to expect me to deal with other peoples'?!? So a couple years ago at church camp when a bunch of girls came up screaming about how they'd seen a black snake in the room that twenty something of us were sharing, I knew that I had to take care of the freaking-out-ish-ness.

And what did snarky adolescent Rachel decide to do? She decided to get a hold of a little snake of her own.

Granted, I'm way too chicken to ever dream of touching a real snake...so after much thinking, plotting, and borrowing, I managed to come up with a nice snake-sized stick covered in black duct-tape. She wasn't much to look at in the light, but in the dark she was a beauty! Then I connived my friend into helping me amp up the drama by adding her own screams and agreeing to turn on the lights when I gave her the signal.

That night I sat in the bathroom until I thought everyone was just about to fall asleep. I slipped into my bed as that hush that you only hear at the end of an exhausting day at camp fell over the room. I lay there breathing and trying to work myself into enough of a terrorized state to sound convincing. Then I opened my mouth and said in a shaky voice, "What is that?!? Oh my gosh guys! Snake! Snake!"

(It was very very real sounding...you don't understand the full drama of the situation just reading what I said...)

So then my friend hopped out of bed and ran screaming toward the light switch, which she flipped on, and I jumped out of bed and threw my little snake friend in the middle of the floor and everyone screamed and then I got yelled at and it was hilarious. The lights got turned off, girls got back in their beds, we all tried to calm down.

A normal person would let the story end there...

But when one girl announced that I had scared her so badly that she then needed to go to the bathroom...I couldn't help myself. She went into the bathroom and I slithered out of my bed and across the room to her bed with my snake friend, which I promptly deposited on her pillow.

It all would have went off without a hitch if there hadn't been a huge metal pole in the middle of the room...

I had actually remembered that the pole was there and I started to feel for it when I thought I was getting closer...but alas my arms had already passed where the pole was. So I found it with my face. And of course, it made a huge "THUNG" that the whole room heard.

So not only did I nearly break my nose, but I barely remember the girl coming out of the bathroom and freaking out after finding the present I'd left on her pillow.

And guess what! The story doesn't end here either!

Because the next day when we were all sitting on my friend's bed playing cards (yes, the friend who'd turned the lights on), guess what slithered out of her mattress. That's right kids...the real snake had been in HER bed the whole night.

And of course, everyone jumped off the bed...except for yours truly...who just sat there staring down the little beast and said, "I think GOD is punishing me guys."

I'll leave the details of the catching and killing of the snake to your imagination because they're not very interesting or uncommon. It was caught. It was killed. I survived to play pranks on another day.

I will say though...I play pranks FAR less often now.