A Lighter View
Snake sighting
By K.E.H. Stagg

July 30, 2009

I have a phobia of snakes, which I think is healthy because it has stood me in good stead all these years. Growing up on the Indian subcontinent where poisonous and constricting snakes were plentiful, I never suffered a bite or squeeze or was harmed by a snake in any way other than being petrified half to death with fear. Even now, I don’t bother registering if the head of a serpent is round or triangular, if the pupils are slitted or if the hinged mouth boasts fangs. As far as I’m concerned, every snake is poisonous and should be avoided at all cost!

Just this weekend, my reptilophobia raised its ugly head once again just outside Perry County. I was minding my own business—heading for the outhouse, if you must know—when I happened to spot a snake on the path directly in front of me. My screams were reported in three neighboring counties, and my involuntary shuddering registered on the Richter scale.

Once the snake and I had scampered our separate ways and my jellied legs returned to their normally solid state, I yelled for reinforcements, who arrived with hoe and shovel. It turned out that “my” snake had a mate or a friend; both were dispatched on the spot with much wielding of the garden implements. My friends, who know about such things, informed me that the snakes were copperheads, which even I know really are poisonous.

Another copperhead had been done in the previous weekend, but my friends hadn’t told me so as not to frighten me. The neighbor also had run over one on his lawn tractor in the preceding week, which explained to my friends why the black snake, milk snake and garter snakes they were accustomed to sighting had disappeared; they had either been frightened off or eaten by the copperheads.

Since I’d spent the weekend wandering the path in my bare feet, it made my skin crawl to think I might’ve stepped on one of the loathsome creatures, guaranteed to provoke a bite, after which I’d swell like a balloon from the venom. Although the experts insist that few copperhead bites prove fatal, they all admit that the bite is “painful” and that tissue surrounding the site is likely to get infected, may turn septic and putrid and also could result in “loss” of tissue.

Frankly, I despise all slithering reptiles sufficiently that I don’t intend to undergo an amputation for a single one of them. Yucky! Yucky! And the people who keep them as pets? Certifiably insane!

Next time I venture into the great outdoors, I’m taking a firearm along. All snakes are hereby warned that making an appearance is grounds for immediate annihilation, and I will not stop firing until the chamber is empty.