I hate snakes…

I was trying to find an image of a snake I saw back in the early 2000s that was like 5 steps up our back stairs  and thought this was a good Idea to post  http://www.wildernesscollege.com/identify-snakes.html

I have 3 1/2 snake stories  I can tell you but the first 2 are the reason I hate snakes. Now I use hate as I’m not sure I’m actually afraid of them, tho I do get the willies when I see one, even when it’s voluntarily like writing this up.

 

My dad was  working on his VW Bug (punch Buggy .. or slug bug depending where you are from) and asked me to get something from inside. I walk down the walk and hear a hiss, looked around saw nothing and I guess thought dad was checking the tires. I heard another hiss, and spotted the snake (a garter)  and yelled. My dad told me not to move but I froze in step (one leg up & the other down and was a bit hard to balance, I probably looked like a cartoon) and couldn’t anyway. He chased it away with something. This wasn’t the last time.

The next weekend (we went up every weekend) it repeated dad doing something with the car, and ya know I’d swear it was the same damn snake! (So much so I’m willing to say Thor strike me down if it wasn’t) well this time my grandfather came out with the pistol! So I’m instigating to the point I’d be in the penalty box for a lifetime. I kept saying to shoot it, and my dad or pop- pop said it wouldn’t hit the snake. Well like the child I was in my ‘infinite wisdom’ answered back “it would ricochet on the ‘walls’ and hit him.” (ya think I watched Too much Loony Toons  & Tom & Jerry as a kid?) Well that’s as much of that instance I remember. After that I guess the snake learned to not be a bully and never showed itself again (to me anyway)

So I am not sure if this one was from before or after the incidents at my Pop-pop’s but there was a girl next door to my Aunt Lois when she lived in Newburgh and unlike me she was a Kimberly (I’m just a Kim its on my birth certificate) well her dad (I think it was her dad) was outside skinning/dissecting whatever he was doing. I remember watching him do this and feeling a little satisfaction pretending it was the one from Pop-pops. If I remember right I think he took something out of the snake that gave it a bump but I can’t remember if it was an egg, or mouse or what that it ate or something (maybe a frog?) I just remember it was like watching Jaws when they opened the tiger shark up to see if it ate the kid.

 

A friend from my old neighborhood, his little bro had a baby Boa (I think that’s what it was) and to get over any fears I may have had, I pet it to try and not be ‘afraid’ so I at least I do not have a phobic fear.  I still hate them and is the ONLY animal I would hang up as a trophy.   (Warning to all snakes… I’m at the age where if you mess with this Scorpio, you’ll learn the true meaning a the Scorpio(n)’s sting, and pray I don’t have a hockey stick or something I can wack ya with.

So before I mention the incidents that were at home Let me ask you this:

How the $%^+*# does a snake get 5 steps up, even though those stairs are instead of standard height were another 2-3 inches higher! They had to be a good 6 inches high

I remember yelling at my dad “Snake!, there’s a snake down here on the stairs” (maybe I should have cursed then maybe he would have believed me but there were other people around)  I can’t remember if I stepped over it (and I really didn’t want to step over it as I was quite sure it didn’t belong in the area,  ahem that I KNEW it wasn’t a garter snake and wasn’t sure if it was poisonous) or if I went and had someone come down to let me in through the vestibule.(which would have been quite hard considering the height of the stairs.

We were B-B-Qing and my dad wouldn’t believe me screaming about there being a snake as if I would kid about something like that after the previous experiences & the reason I hate Deja vu. Well he finally looks over and is like “Oh there’s really a snake there” (no shhh really? I wasn’t aware of that….it’s what I’ve been trying to tell you the past what 15 minutes?!!?!) I was asking for sticks and all sorts of things for him to hand down to me so I could try to get it. To me, it looked like an overly long worm of different colors.

another comes from the one that again was around the house we had lived in after I graduated from High school, but comes after the one on the stairs. Our landlord which was like another grandma had a little ‘postage stamp’ garden in front of the house where her part was (I think part basement part where another garage could have been) I have a bad habit (esp. in the summer) of walking around barefoot, to this day I still walk around barefoot even if I walk across the street or a few houses up. Well where the garden is, there’s a little walkway to go through the gate where the trash cans were stored. Well walking along that what’s hanging half in the gutter (used for drainage to water the little garden maybe 3-5x)  a small snake that again I thought was a big ass worm! So therefore I HATE snakes(and I guess worms too). Now any other animals I wouldn’t say this about (even ugly ones) but Snakes are only good for one thing… Belts & those headbands around hats! Which I think Kim’s dad was making the later.