{slimy nasty creepy crawly snake story}

I am not much of a reptile person, actually I don't like turtles, snails, frogs (well, we have two African water frogs that I am so afraid to touch), but snakes....I hate snakes, they give me the heebie jeebies. When I was growing up in Orlando, I remember 2 encounters with snakes as a child. The one that I remember the most, and I was quite young (maybe 7 years old) was when we came home and a coral snake was in our house. Actually, in mine and my sister's bedroom. If you know anything about coral snake's they are highly poisonous. I remember my Dad trying to kill the snake while my sister and i sat on the living room couch and my Mother went and got a gun that I didn't even know that we owned. My father yelling at her to put the gun away, he was trying to kill the snake another way. Then my Dad put that snake in a jar with phemaldahyde and sat it on his work desk for years. I now think back on that and think how gross! Why would he do that. Who knows, my Dad is a nut. Secondly, we had a enormous black snake that hung out in our back yard. With our house backing up to the woods, this was not unusual and it lived there for years. My Dad would not kill it because he said that it killed everything else that we didn't want like rodents, etc. That was fine and dandy until we got pet rabbits. Well, you know how that goes. The snake never hurt the rabbits, but I always worried that I would go outside and see half my "Mr. Whiskers" hanging out of that big black snake's mouth.

Now, my next encounter was a few nights ago and it still gives me the heebies just thinking about it. I was walking home in the dusk by myself in my neighborhood. I was walking at a pretty good pace and I looked down right under the street light and saw that less than a foot in front of me was a rattle snake with his tail up and his head bobbing at me. He was quite defensive. It scared the pee out of me! Obviously, I ran home. I am not a "runner", but I may have it in me after all. I told my husband about the snake and he put on his flip flops (not such a smart choice, I thought, but that's just me!) and he got a ho (a GARDEN ho) and off we went. I figured that slimey nasty little booger would have taken off after his encounter with me. But no, he was in the same place and he fought Mark to the death, he put his tail up and was striking. Truth be told, I am so glad that my son is not out and about playing like he normally would be because they are obviously out there. By the next morning, the birds had picked his bones...Anyway, that is my slimey nasty creepy crawly snake story. Sleep well and watch where you step!