EUFAULA, Ala. (WRBL) — So, it turns out that finding a snake in your toilet is a real — if uncommon — possibility.

Great.

Friday, police officers in Eufaula were called to a home with a slithering surprise.

“We never know from one day to the next what kind of call we will receive during our shift. Today was no exception, however, a snake in the toilet wasn’t on our list of possibilities. Day shift removed the unwelcomed visitor and released it to a more suitable habitat,” shared Chief Steve Watkins on the department’s Facebook page.

A home’s plumbing includes one or more pipes that vent out of the roof, but a determined snake could also wind up in the toilet in other ways.

“They may be looking for water or tracking prey animals that entered leaky pipes,” herpetologist Nicole F. Angeli, a researcher at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, told Inverse. “They could also simply be looking for a nice cool place to hide.”

Watkins shared pictures of the residence’s reptile. Turns out it was a harmless Gray Rat snake. Still, a new phobia has been unlocked for this author. 

“In the snake’s defense, he was just trying to reach the homeowner about their car’s extended warranty,” joked Watkins.

Comments on the post had all the emojis and jokes one might expect, but there was something else that caught the eye of a few people — the bowl itself.

“I wish I could get my toilet that clean,” one woman remarked.

Jokes and clean-toilet compliments aside, the fear of reptilian eyes staring back during a late-night trip to the bathroom is now apparently real for many commenters. One even created a bedtime rhyme that was an instant hit among the other commenters: “Never ever go in the night without turning on the light.”