10/14/2026
🐍 I was at this job earlier, replacing some hose bibs on the outside of a house, which required me to turn the water off at the street.
I open the water meter box and find about a 2ft long snake in there. After a few minutes, I looked down in the box and it appeared to be gone, like it slithered into a crack or escaped in some sort of way.
So here I am, needing to reach down in there. But I’m not seeing a snake anymore.
Oh well. I reach down in there, no gloves, with some channel locks and start cranking on this shut off, which was extremely stuck. I had to get get multiple different tools, try harder, bang harder, twist harder, it wasn’t moving. Still no snake.
Finally, I am able to grip this shut off at a different angle and gave it enough strength it finally broke free. Still no snake.
I go do the job that was required, finish up, and go back to turn the water back on. Still no snake.
Now I’m back on my hands and knees reaching down in this box, struggling once again to now open this previously stuck valve that I closed.
I get it turned about half way back open and start seeing movement DIRECTLY under the water meter itself.
If you’re unfamiliar, the meter looks like a soup can sitting on the ground with a pipe going into each side of it. This is all down inside a water meter box in the ground.
That snake had curled itself up right under the meter, which is like right where I was working. I thought it went off into one of the holes where the pipes come through into the box.
Throughout my struggles, I had sent a pic or two to ChatGPT to ask if this valve could even be turned without the utility company there. I casually added “oh and there’s a snake in the box.”
ChatGPT cleared up what I needed to do, but then absolutely lost its mind on the fact I did all of that knowingly with an unknown snake in the box.
Apparently unhinged behavior.
I am not paid to stand around and negotiate with wildlife. That water meter wasn’t going to shut itself off! 🤠
The things we do in the field 🤷🏻♂️
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