otoh

On the radio this morning the DJ said, “This close to Halloween, the scariest thing on my TV should not be the Weather Channel.” Hurricane Wilma is still down near the Yucatan peninsula but will likely hit some part of Florida sometime this weekend. At best we’ll probably have a lot of wind and rain. But I don’t want to write about the weather today (any more than I already have).

I hate snakes. They give me the creeps. I understand the role they play in nature and I wouldn’t want to be overrun by rodents by living in a world without snakes. I don’t encounter them often, but I try to maintain a “You-leave-me-alone-and-I’ll-leave-you-alone” policy.

I’ll occasionally see brown snakes slithering out of the way when I’m cutting the grass, especially if I’ve let it grow long — which in Florida in the summer can mean it has been more than four days. Sometimes I’ll see part of one that didn’t get out of the way quickly enough. (First, ewh! Second, sorry about that dude. I’d have let you get out of the way if I had seen you in time. Really.)

The only poisonous snakes that I’ve had close encounters with are rattlesnakes. I would see them when hiking in Eastern Kentucky when I lived up that way. They warm themselves on rocks in the sun during the cool days of the spring and fall. If that rock happens to be on the trail you’re following, a short detour is prudent.

Once, when I was hiking with some friends, one member of the group was carrying a .22 caliber pistol. (I’m not a fan of guns either, but that will have to be another post.) We had gotten separated by a couple hundred yards when we heard a couple of shots from his pistol. He had come across a rattlesnake and, with a policy far different from mine, shot it. A small caliber firearm is, in my very limited experience, not a very effective way to kill a snake. But there’s an old wives tail — no, tale, hah — that a snake won’t die until after the sun goes down. I was about to find out why.

As we gathered around to find out what the shooting was about we saw this small (I remember it as being maybe two feet in length) rattlesnake with a couple small holes in its body. (I don’t give the guy much credit for brains, but he was either a good shot or gotten really close.) Then I watched as he took out his pocketknife, stepped on the snake’s head with his heavy boot, and cut the head off.

Believe it or not, now comes the really creepy part. He decided he wanted to keep the rattle as a souveneir. So he reached down with his knife once more and began to cut the rattle off the tail. And the headless body of the snake struck at his hand! If the head had still been on it would have been a sure bite. But the head was lying on the ground. Ewh, ewh, ewh!!! That is one of the creepiest things, if not the mostest creepiest thing, I have ever seen.

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