Ever have one of those Lassie moments?

You know the one, where Lassie senses the danger that everyone else just doesn't seem to pick up on?

Man, oh man, did Maxwell have one of those moments this evening.

When I got home from work, my wife tells me that Max has been going nuts trying to get into the kids bathroom.

Now don't be fooled, he loves to be in there because the kids trash has all kinds of delicacies; from snotty tissues to dirty Q-tips--and he is a Q-tip fiend! But as long as the door is shut, he pretty much ignores the bathroom altogether.

Not this evening.

Apparently he'd been scratching at the door, whining, fussing, the whole 9 yards--so much so that my wife ended up putting him outside.

I head into the bathroom and give a cursory glance around, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. I close the door and head out back to see Maxwell.

We do our normal happy-to-see-you-I-missed-you-and-I-thought-you-were-never-coming-home greeting and then head inside. Sure enough, he beelines straight for the bathroom door. So now I'm intrigued.

"What is his deal?" I think to myself.

Being the exceptionally bright man that I am, I went ahead and opened the door for him. He bolts in and immediately starts fussing at something between the sink cabinet and the toilet.

I flip on the light and try to get a good look at what's got him so bothered.

It's then that my heart stands completely still and gallops 100 miles per hour all at once.

There wedged up against the cabinet, in that little space left by the toilet, I see it. It's coiled up tightly--its business end swaying slightly as if in a gentle breeze. The diamond pattern along its length looks like sinister, deadly quilting.

Before I can even twitch, Maxwell lunges and somehow grabs hold of it without getting struck first.

I suddenly find my voice. I'm yelling "Drop it!" at Maxwell, but I'm not entirely sure that's the safest thing for him to do. I'm dancing around like a lunatic dressed in fire ants trying to find an opening where I can grab it away from him without getting hurt. I mean the two of them are a whirling dervish of fangs, teeth and growls--there's no way I can get my hands in there safely.

I can only imagine what that scene must have looked like from the outside.

By now Max has pulled one end of it out into the hallway, and this thing is huge. He's strung it from the cabinet to the doorway, and it just keeps coming.

Finally with his patented death shake, chunks are starting to come off, and it appears to stop moving.

I manage to get him to drop it, and good grief... We both just sat there panting.

It's then that the gravity of the situation washes over me. I mean at any moment my kids could have gone in there to use the bathroom and all the while it was lying wait. If they had reached their hand out...

Anyway, here's a couple pictures.

The aftermath, and the villain.

The hero of the hour.

Ok, well maybe I'm being a little over dramatic...