There is a very specific kind of evening that starts completely normal and ends with you standing in your backyard holding the moral weight of the universe in your bare hands while your hair does something genuinely unhinged.
This past Monday was that evening.
I came home from the gym feeling good. Like, I did the thing, I showed up, I deserve a snack and some couch time goodness. The endorphins were running. The sweaty smugness was high. Life was, briefly, under control.
And then I walked into whatever Gigi had done.
Gigi — our beloved, loyal, deeply well-intentioned dog — had apparently decided that today was the day she would save our family from certain destruction. The threat in question: a beautiful adult black racer snake (one of the really good snakes to keep around) who had made the very bad life choice of wandering into our yard. Gigi did not negotiate. Gigi did not ask questions. Gigi acted.
The snake — who had done nothing wrong and was simply being a snake in a world full of Gigis — was now paralyzed from about the top quarter of his body down.
Not dead. Paralyzed.
Which, if you think about it, is actually the worse outcome. For everyone involved.
It was decided, in the way these things are always decided in our house — meaning it was decided for me — that I would be the one to help him enter his final rest.
We named him Bruce first. That felt important. You don’t just send somebody off without a name. Bruce deserved that much.
I will not describe what followed in detail, except to say that I did what needed to be done, I did right by Bruce, and I am choosing to believe he is currently in some warm, sunny snake afterlife, moving freely, eating frogs, and holding absolutely no grudges.
The gods, however? The gods had thoughts.
By the time it was over, my hair had staged a full revolt. We’re talking Medusa-level chaos. We’re talking something that could only be described as weather event with opinions. I looked in the mirror and understood immediately that I was no longer Randy.
For the rest of the evening, my name was Mandusa.
Here’s the thing about Bruce that I haven’t stopped thinking about:
He wasn’t the villain. He was just going somewhere. Probably going about his perfectly serpentine business, minding his own coils, and then — without warning — the whole trajectory of his life changed because of forces entirely outside his control.
There was no bad intention on his part. There was just a dog doing what dogs do, and a snake who got caught in the middle of it, and a man who got home from the gym expecting snacks (healthy?) and ended up as an unexpected steward of a small, sad ending.
Sometimes you’re Gigi, trying to protect everything you love, even when you misread the threat.
Sometimes you’re Bruce, just trying to get somewhere and running out of road.
And sometimes you’re Mandusa — post-gym, post-trauma, hair absolutely unhinged — learning, once again, that the universe does not schedule its harder moments around your workout schedule.
Be gentle with the Bruces you encounter. They’re usually just passing through and the best kind of good snakes to not set on fire.
Wayfinder runs every Wednesday at randyscobey.com. If your hair has ever physically responded to emotional stress, you are my people.
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