In the first heat wave of the year, I got my first snake, in my garage, nearly under my feet. I had just gotten back home on a balmy Saturday evening about 8:30, after dark, and pulled into my garage. In the near blackness, I was about to take some groceries out of the trunk of my car. I noticed something on the floor between my flip-flopped feet that I thought was a lizard. However, it didn't scamper away like those creatures usually do. Then, outlined in the contrast between dark shadows and a porch light, I saw what it was: a rattlesnake. As I identified its outline, the head drew up toward me and out flicked its tongue. I backed away slowly and went to get my next-door neighbors, Patricia and Chris. They came over with flashlights. The snake had not yet moved. I called 911.

Amy, the local Animal Control officer came. By then it had slithered under a workbench in my garage, next to my car door. She used a special pick-up stick to grab him and said the rattlesnake was a Southern Pacific Diamondback; about a year old, and deadly. It was her third rattler call in the area that day. After some more Q&A, and a few photos taken after it was in a large clear plastic bag, she put it in her truck.

I had cleaned out under the workbench not long ago, and that is where Mr. Rattle chose to wait. So, was that his "usual spot" or a newly-found one? Amy said that if you kill one, you must bury the head -- she said most people fail to do that. The ones Animal Control picks up, like mine, are put it to sleep with Phenobarbital in a needle.