By LYNETTE HAALAND
Four Points News
A Steiner Ranch resident came home from work one recent afternoon and didn’t know she put her purse down inches away from a rattlesnake at her front door.
“I set my heavy purse down on the door mat and was just about unlocking the front door when I saw the snake coiled on the door mat right beside my purse,” said Birjis Rashed.
Rashed — a professor at Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, a blogger at Hot Sweet Spicy Recipes, and a mother of two daughters — freaked out, picked up her purse and ran inside through the garage door.
She announced to the others at home about the presence of the snake and not to open the front door. They ventured back slowly hoping the snake was gone, but finding it comfortable and still sitting by the front door.
Rashed — who hates and fears all sorts of reptiles, snakes and lizards — looked up the brown and white, diamond-marked snake to find out that it was in fact a western diamondback rattlesnake and that it was venomous.