Gorham homeowner Mara Ranger this week presumably learned more than she ever wanted to know about pythons. She found herself an instant student of the slithery things when an 8-foot specimen snaked its way somehow into her washing machine. She had no idea it was there until she took her blue jeans out of the machine on Wednesday and they were followed by the head of the python.

"It looked huge," she told WMTW-TV.

You can't make this stuff up, honestly.

Anyway, Ranger called police and animal control and they had more important things to do. Or thought she was a prankster. So they blew her off. Ranger finally charmed Richard Burton of Maine Animal Damage Control in Lewiston into making a house call. Burton donned a pair of welding gloves, reached into the washing machine (see what it takes to get some guys to deal with the laundry?) and pulled out the snake.

All eight feet of it. At which point the drama started: The snake wrapped itself around Burton's hand, cutting off the blood flow.

Burton turned on his best Indiana Jones imitation and wrestled the snake into a plastic bag (Indiana would have put it into a snakeskin bag, but that's another movie). Snake's now in Lewiston. End of story.

Except that we do wonder what things will be like at the Ranger abode the next time someone needs to do laundry.