Sunday, April 09, 2006

If Your Scared, Say Scared

Friday afternoon Ginger found a snake sunning on the edge of the back porch. I was summoned to handle the situation.

Two things you gotta know:

1. I am afraid of heights. Being 5'6" it doesn't take much height to bother me. Standing on a chair for instance. Heights bother me a lot but only because I don't run into many snakes.

Obviously the second thing you need to know is that I am terrified of snakes. I am not allergic to them though, but that is another story. I think the snake thing goes back to a few encounters I had as a kid.

I bought a pellet gun when I was in college. I decided this might be a good way to eradicate the snake. After retrieving it, I pumped it up and took a shot at the ground. Ginger mentioned the snake is not over there, it's over here. I told her I was calibrating my aim.

The next shot was at the snake. It went right through it and knocked it off the porch. Another half dozen shots and it was immobile. Next came the snake head remover, aka the shovel. Eventually I tossed the remains in the woods and came back inside. Full of adrenaline, but not feeling good about the situation. I hate snakes!

Next I hit the internet to find out something about the snake. It turns out there are 40 varieties of snakes in Alabama. Only six are poisonous. Five of those are vipers. The six is red and yellow. The snake I killed was not a viper and not red and yellow. Whew! After a bit of searching I decided it was a gray rat snake. Farmers may like to have them around, but I don't.

Oh yeah, it was about 30" long and about as round as a half-dollar.

Indiana Jones hates spiders, I hate snakes. Yeah, I am skerd!

No comments: