After Jon left to go to college, our air conditioner broke.  I called the repair man and told him the unit was at the back of Jon's closet.  The man went back to fix it, then came back to where I was in the kitchen and said, "Lady, I'm not going to work in there with that snake."  I had no idea what he was talking about, so I went to Jon's room to check it out.  Sure enough, there was a six foot long snake in the closet.

Jon had kept it alive in there for months and months.  Unbeknownst to any of us.  I wouldn't let him bring the dog in the house because the dog shed.  Big mistake--I should have let the dog in.  I would much rather have had a dog shedding fur than a snake shedding skin.   I guess Jon thought the snake would be okay in the closet while he was gone.  It wasn't.

At the end of the term, Jon walked into the back door and yelled, "I'm home."  And a strange woman looked at him and said, "What are you doing in my house.  You need to leave right now."  We had forgotten to tell Jon that we had sold the house he had grown up in--and lived in for eighteen years.  He had to call his friends to find out where we were.

In our defense, he rarely called home.  And the move had been sudden.  A realtor called and said someone wanted to buy the house, and did we want to sell.  We hadn't thought about it, but she said to put a price on it if we were interested.  We did, and bought another house the next week.  And moved.  Which was not unusual for Ken and I.  We had moved a zillion times.  But Jon hadn't.  He had spent his entire life in Pryor.  Ken and I, and our other three children had moved from coast to coast and over seas as well.  I've moved 25 times.  No big deal.  It was a big deal to Jon.

"Why didn't you guys tell me you were moving!  That lady could have shot me!!  She thought I was breaking and entering!  I had to explain that I grew up in that house.  And that my parents didn't tell me they had moved.  Which I'm sure she didn't believe.  Nobody moves without telling their kids!"

"Sorry."  What more was there to say.  He was born into a strange family.