The outhouse beckoned to Grandmaw one day,
She eagerly answered its call.
And since the town didn’t have plumbing yet,
It was the outhouse or nothing at all.
She hurried out to the small wooden shack
And opened the lopsided door,
The musty, cool darkness promised relief
As did the toilet paper on the floor.
Grandmaw went on in and tugged down her pants
And hovered right over the seat,
Balancing like all southern women do,
As she stared down at her dusty bare feet.
Then she looked up as she saw something shift
In the shadows above the door,
Grandmaw froze up like a deer on the road,
As a big snake decended to the floor.
Grandmaw, still hovering over the hole,
Yelled at the snake so it would go,
It didn’t care for the tone of her voice
So it hissed and lunged at Grandma’s bare toes.
Grandmaw hollered and ran out of the shack
Pulling up her pants in her haste,
Grandpaw saw the whole thing from the porch,
Laughing and wiping the tears from his face.
My Uncle Jack witnessed the flight,
He blushed from his feet to his head,
He’d never his momma's bare bottom before
And it made his face turn bright red.
They never let Grandmaw live that one down,
The whole story was passed with glee,
About the day that Grandmaw raced a snake
That prevented her from taking a pee.
Dana Sieben 2005