How do I know he loves me?

How do I know he loves me?

Women all over the world ask themselves that question every single day. One can be in a relationship for years but there is always a smidge of doubt until that one magic moment. Everyone’s moment is different. Some are sweet. Some are sad. Some are like mine, hilarious.

Before I get to the story let me tell you a little about my guy. He is 6 foot tall has gorgeous blue eyes, light brown (arguably dark blonde) hair. Did I mention he’s a former Marine? He sleeps peacefully after horror movies, drags me onto roller coasters and laughs through haunted houses.

Every Superman has his kryptonite. His? Snakes.

We aren’t talking everyday heebie jeebies. I mean a full blown “only good snake is a dead snake” phobia.

I am the opposite. He may be the one to call if there is a spider on the wall but I’m the one he calls if there is a snake on the porch.

In fact, his younger sister, who lived with us at the time while still in high school came rushing into our living room. She said she had barely made it through the door because there was a snake on the recliner next to it.

You’re probably wondering why there was a recliner by our front door. We inherited his grandfather’s dog. Dixie was a beautiful 10 year old mixed breed. She was the height and had the head shape of rat terrier but was the color of a blue tick hound. Being raised by a retired old man she was also spoiled and fat. Not normal fat. She was bowling ball on toothpicks fat. Looking at her was like looking at a bumble bee. You couldn’t help but wonder how her thin little legs held up her round body.

The recliner on the porch catered to how spoiled she was. Heaven forbid her highness lay on a dusty old porch. No, she needed a nice soft cushion and a dog bed just didn’t cut it.

Now that that’s explained…

Little sister is in a panic, he is headed to the closet to get his gun and me, being a lover of all things furred, finned, feathered and scaled calmly head to the porch to prevent a possible unnecessary casualty. We live in the middle of the woods on the foot hills of the Smokey mountains in rural Alabama, so seeing copper heads and rattle snakes is pretty common. With that in mind I cautiously opened the door.

I didn’t hear any rattling so I peaked out. No snake. I stepped out and looked all around. With the panicked state of little sister I assumed the snake was fairly large so when I didn’t see it I thought it was safe to say that it slithered on it’s marry way. I was wrong.

I turned around to see little sister standing in the doorway with Mr. Marine cowering behind her asking if it was gone. As I’m laughing at his frazzled state I see a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. I look back at the recliner and there is the snake. A six inch rat snake, no bigger around than a number two pencil perched on the head rest of the chair. Scary right?

Since we had cats and chickens and I was dealing with panicking loved ones I decided to relocate the little legless critter. I don’t think I have ever seen a marine rush as quickly to get away as he did when I picked up that snake. I could barely breath as I walked to the woods to let it go because I was laughing so hard.

Fast forward 4 years and me and my marine are at PetCo. Since I love reptiles and he was okay with them as long as they have legs we were looking at bearded dragons. The terrarium next to the little lizards had a beautiful scarlet king snake slithering around. Her red color was vibrant and her bands were nearly perfect strips of onyx and cream. Seeing me eye her my marine looked at me and said “if you want to look at her you can”.

Naturally I looked at me like he was abducted by aliens. My guy okay with me getting a snake? Impossible. There was absolutely no way.

Being a gambler (in theory at least) I decided to push my luck. I asked the attendant if I could see the snake.

The sales associate was an obviously chauvinistic young man and had what he done not been so funny I probably would have been offended. He put the snake in my guys hand. My true to the bone, never touched a snake in his life, Ophidiophobic was holding a very active constrictor. His eyes were close to popping out of his head and I didn’t hear him take a single breath. I bit my lip to keep from laughing so I could take the snake before he suffocated. When he could breath again he explained that I was the snake lover and until then he had never even touched a snake. He huffed out a nervous laugh and did a little side step to put some distance between him and the demonic creature. After holding her for a moment and getting ready to put her back for the bearded dragon he spoke up. What he said was something I never expected.

“If you want her you can have her”.

That day I walked out of PetCo with a snake and the knowledge that his love for me was bigger than his fears.