My cat George brings me gifts on a regular basis. Last week, he outdid himself.

George is 6, and a seasoned hunter, but always he is perfecting his skills, challenging himself to bigger and more elusive prey. Over the years, he has graduated from mice and birds to fully grown rabbits and, during the last few months, snakes.

The snakes hang out in the rocks decoratively placed around The Tree (for its size and beauty, it is now considered nearly a family member, well-deserving of capital letters) and in the drainage rocks at the edge of our neighbor's lawn. They are garter snakes. Small, harmless, helper snakes with a lust for insects and no desire for human - or feline - interaction.

George is whittling away at their population, certainly wreaking serpentine grief among the clan.

He brought the first snake in about six weeks ago. Robby reported seeing a live one curled on the carpet. He picked it up, took it outside and released it.

The next was not so lucky. It, too, was curled onto the carpet, but it would never uncoil again. I dumped this stiff bit of reptile into a Wal-Mart bag and gave it a proper burial in the trash can at the nearby park.

In the weeks since, we've found them here and there, some dead, some alive, all in the basement. The live ones are released, the dead get a visit to the park.

Last Tuesday, I found yet another. Definitely dead.

I saw it, what was left of it, during a search for a set of curtains hastily unpacked and jammed into a place uncertain. The cabinet in Robby's basement TV room was my best guess. I had just the place for them, and, excited as always at the prospect of decorating, flew down the stairs with that weird little surge of joy only female homeowners can understand.

The cabinet in which I was sure the curtains were stored was streaked with dried blood. Hanging from its door was a snake's body. Rather, a portion of a snake's body. The portion I could not see was trapped in the cabinet door, it appeared. The portion I could see was only about six inches long, tapering off into an umblicial-like cord of dried blood.

Dear little George apparently had torn the thing apart as it hung, suspended, from the cabinet. Just how this had transpired I did not know. Or care. My gag reflex sprang to life.

I pride myself on my farm girl upbringing, which I believe makes me tough and not easily shaken. In the wake of George's successful hunting trips, I've cleaned up many a rabbit's head. Black, shiny, sightlessly staring rodent eyes don't particularly bother me. Nor do the bits of intestine sometimes left behind. Dead birds, mice, stiff but intact snakes? Bring them on.

This was none of those things. I approached the body with a paper towel in hand, and wrapped it around the six inches of body remaining. I tugged, lightly. The hose-shaped object was going nowhere. I tried to raise the top of the cabinet up with my hand. It barely moved.

I envisioned the snake's head on the other side. I envisioned it separating from the body if I pulled hard. I envisioned myself puking on Robby's carpet.

I ran back upstairs, my homeowner joy replaced by near buyer's remorse. This was one of the aspects of homeownership upon which I'd never counted. I felt ill-equipped to handle it. I was no longer the proud, independent divorcee who single-handedly maintained my wee homestead. I was merely a woman, in need of a man.

I called the neighbor.

Mike was at my door within 10 minutes. He entered carrying a gallon-sized flashlight, a wrench and thick, canvas gloves -- appropriate tools, I thought approvingly, for a bloody snake of undetermined but surely massive size. I ushered him downstairs. He stared at the cabinet door. He grimaced. I felt thoroughly vindicated. Even a being ruled by testosterone was repulsed by the sight.

That was all the satisfaction I got. Mike walked over and gave the top of the cabinet a firm yank. It fairly flew up, making a three-inch gap from which he pulled the snake. He removed about three, thin inches of snake tail, which he dropped into his own Wal-Mart bag and took with him.

"Hopefully next time, I'll call with a real emergency," I said, thanking him and feeling small, helpless and oh-so-typically female.

He waved it off. "For most people, that is a real emergency."

I wanted to say, "But I am not most people!" But realized this was not the time or place, and that my voice would lack conviction.

I still cannot figure out how the snake got into its fatal position. My best guess is that George brought it in live and let it go, that the snake slithered up into the cabinet in an attempt to escape and, discovering there was no out there, turned around and came out -- into George's waiting claws and teeth. For George, batting at the helplessly dangling reptile must have made for a merry game.

Yesterday, I watched George catch another snake. He waited with that impressive hunter's brand of patience, then jammed a paw between two rocks and pulled up a pitifully small fellow. George's mouth closed around it, and I saw the snake coil. Tail straight up with obvious pride, George carried it into the backyard and down the steps into the basement.

I ran for the camera and took several pictures of feline and serpent before releasing the unharmed but surely changed small snake into rocks. I took them to record so people would believe my stories of George's snake-hunting prowess. But mostly, I took them to send to a dear friend, who is terrified of snakes. She will never, she says, set foot in my basement again. And George, whom she once adored, now gives her the shudders.

As for me, I'm closing the sliding glass door at night now. It's the portal through which George travels on his nightly excursions, and it has remained open every day since we moved to Peacock Drive. My excuse is that it's getting killed. But the truth is, I think George needs to get reacquainted with his food dish.