I'm medicated and healing

More from yesterday-- Cletus, who is actually named Billy, and some of his friends were out here yesterday fixing something. They were drunk. When it was fixed, Billy came over to talk to me about it, because that ole boy wants a reason to talk to all of this. Just then, the thirteen-year-old boy member of my camp neighbor family yelled that there was a big snake. Billy's bud took off running, shovel in one hand and giant can of Busch beer in the other. He took quite a few poorly aimed whacks at the snake. It got angry and curled up, shaking its rattler, according to Billy's bud. I was not close enough at this point to see or hear any rattling. He finally hit it enough to damage it, then attempted to remove its head with a shovel, which was unsuccessful, but he claimed it was done on purpose because he wanted to keep it intact. We all looked at it for a while, and there was some debate about what type of snake it was. They eventually decided it was a rattlesnake because it had a few rattles, but later got back to us that it was a kingsnake. I looked it up. It was a speckled kingsnake. Anyway, Billy's bud wanted to keep the thing, so he got a grocery bag out of the car and picked it up by the tail. Blood was dripping out, the snake was long, and he was beery, so he had a bit of difficulty getting the head in the bag. By this point, the camp neighbor and I were giggling and making quiet jokes about bringing home some groceries. Billy's bud had some sort of plan that involved scaring his neighbors back at the trailer park, or perhaps making boots, and Billy was telling him that if he brought that thing anywhere near his wife, she would shoot him with her pistol.

Those guys are weird to hang around, but they are capable of putting on quite a show.

I forgot to mention that they measured the distance between the two deepest puncture wounds (the canines) at the hospital yesterday, and it was five centimeters, so if anyone needed a bit of size perspective on that picture, there you go.

Today the dogowners came back to drive me a long ways to a pharmacy that is open on Sunday, so I could get my antibiotics. Those twenty pills were $75, after tax. Yikes. It was so nice just to look at the total, shrug, and look at someone else. They definitely had sticker shock.

This evening, just as I finished eating dinner, Billy drove up and offered me a big bowl of seafood gumbo and some crackers for dinner. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad I missed out on that... I'm better off, though, because dinner was a heavy can of beans I didn't want to carry, and I was positive there were no roofies in it. He brought his bud with him, and the whole time they were here, the ole boy was yammering away on his cell phone about something he hit with his car last night. I sure hope it was a critter of some sort.

Thank you to all of my friends out there who worry about my safety, share my pain, and celebrate my triumphs. This trip could have easily been a very lonely experience, but instead I'm making new friends all over the country, and maintaining the friends I have back home. I always know there's someone out there to talk to, that someone knows someone who is close enough to help me out if I need it, and that people are wishing and praying for my safety. I want to give a special shout out to Susan, who early on really influenced this facet of my trip. The world needs more like you, lady!