Brooms, Buicks, and The Elderly

You know those moments when you’re just standing by watching a scenario unfold and all you can say when it’s over is, “Umm… What?”

These things happen to me all the time, but one particular moment that comes to mind for me was the time that my Great Aunt Marietta killed a snake at church…

Okay. Why is this so significant?

Well, there are a few factors that made this incident a little bit unusual and quite humorous.

Allow me to explain. Several years ago, my little country church got on a low limb and almost shut the doors. It was a rough time and there didn’t seem to be much hope left –until a group of students from the local Baptist College came in and took over. They let God use them in every way and by his grace they were able to bring life back into the church. They also brought some pretty significant laughs –particularly the guys.

One Sunday after church as we were all heading outside, we looked up to see a sizeable snake crawling up the front porch column. Naturally, the girls were scared, but I’m sure we all felt some sense of comfort in the fact that there were plenty of strapping young men around the place to deal with the nasty beast.

Our comfort was clearly misplaced. The second the strapping young men laid eyes on this snake, they were gone. I mean GONE TO THE BACK OF THE CHURCH. They were not going to be useful.

As everyone stood around trying figure out how to deal with this problem, no one noticed Great Aunt Marietta slip out the door and totter over to her little green Buick. At the time, Aunt Marietta was in her early eighties and osteoporosis had shrunk her to a mere five feet. Always the quiet type, she didn’t say a word until she returned to the porch with a broom (Because everyone keeps a broom in their Buick, right?) and told us all to keep out of the way.

Raising up to a full 5’2” my Great Aunt Marietta knocked the snake off the column with the broom handle. When it fell to the floor, everyone (strapping young college boys included) screamed and we then watched in horror as this tiny little old lady valiantly beat the reptilian monster to death on the front porch of the church. When the deed was done my Great Aunt Marietta again used her trusty broom to pick up the dead snake and carried it to the woods to dispose of it. On her way back to the Buick, she smiled at us and called, “Alright. Y’all can come out now…”

We didn’t come out for a few minutes, yet.

All in all the day’s scores totaled as following:

Elderly Old Ladies: 1 – Strapping Young College Boys 0

Reptiles: 0 – Elderly Old Ladies: 1

 

Perhaps one day the Reptiles and the Strapping Young College Boys will get their chance to duel. In the meantime… Go old ladies with brooms and Buicks!

Okay… I hope this little tale made you smile, and I hope you all have a great weekend! :)