I get along fine with snakes, have held them and have none of the visceral fear some folks (like my brother) have. Doesn’t mean I don’t respect them and keep my eyes open if I’m in poisonous snake territory.
Now as to spiders…:eek:
The only snakes I ever see in my yard are the aforementioned blind snakes (totally harmless, and COULDN’T bite you if they wanted to; they’re easily mistaken for earthworms), and Texas brown snakes- little brown guys who eat snails and slugs (local gardeners love them).
The brown snakes are totally harmless, but VERY aggressive! They usually can’t bite you (their mouths are usually too small to get around your finger), or hurt you much if they do, but they put on a very big SHOW of hostility, coiling and acting like they’re going to kill you! They usually hide, but if you pull weeds out of your flower bed, you may disturb one, and it’s hilarious to watch these TINY snakes trying to look menacing.
We never see any rat snakes, but we find their skins all the time, so we KNOW they’re around, probably mostly in the trees.
I was always that weird girl interested in snakes and I always wanted to pick them up and hold them. A family friend gave me a great book on snakes of Ontario when I was young that I still have. I suppose it helps that where I grew up, the only dangerous snakes had a rattle, so it’s easy to recognize and avoid them. I have only ever seen a rattler once in my life, and I had to stop my motorcycle, get off and go have a closer (but not too close) look. To this day, if I’m quick enough, I will catch and cuddle any snakes I find, and then set them free again. I had a very pretty, very tiny garter snake that curled up in the palm of my hand and seemed content to stay there until I put him back by the log where I found him. How cool is that?
There was office-wide panic in this building a few years ago when a shed snakeskin was discovered near the coffeemaker. I had a realistic toy alligator on my desk, so I cupped my hands around it so that only the scaly little tail was showing, then went around asking people, “Is this what you’re looking for?” 
Dern people got no sense of humor.
Perfect. How long have you been waiting for this thread?
Are you sure? You’re right on the edge of the geographic range of two rattlesnake species.
I like snakes. I lam more phobic about spiders. My fears of critters tend to increase with the amount of legs they have, so no legs at all is not a problem for me. I have a few black racers around my house and I am fine with that, they’re cool. I have no problem handling snakes but none of the veterinarians I work with see reptiles so I usually don’t have the opportunity to handle them. I would prefer not to handle giant constrictors just because I am a small person and don’t really think I could keep it from strangling me. Personally, I would never have one as a pet and if I found a venomous one in my yard, I’d probably try to call someone to relocate it.
I had someone bring in a baby racer to work once because they were concerned it was a poisonous snake and may have bitten their pet. I guess he wasn’t afraid of it himself since he caught it instead of chopping it to bits. Baby racers are not black but mottled and could easily be confused with a pygmy rattler. Plus they are feisty buggers that like to pretend to be venomous to scare predators, unfortunately, that does not protect against crazy humans armed with shovels. He had it in a clear container so I could see it did not have elliptical pupils or a rattle so I researched it a little more to be sure and then released the snake near a brush site.
I have a co-worker who is extremely phobic, luckily for her we don’t see them but every once in a while someone brings one in anyway and she runs to the other end of the building.
No - as a kid, I used to chase and catch snakes. If you grab them behind the head, they can’t bite you and are totally harmless (where I was chasing them, there was only one dangerously venemous variety, rare and easily distinguishable).
Problem is that Garter snakes have another defence mechanism, that can’t hurt you but is almost worse - they will poo on you, and it stinks horribly. That cured me of snake-hunting. 
I don’t mind snakes behind glass - I love the reptile house at the zoo - but those free range ones scare the crap out of me. I have moves like a break dancer if I happen upon one in the wild.
Snakes I do not care for
I do not care for snakes
Want to see the Dr dance?
A slither’s all it takes.
I’m fine with snakes despite having been bitten by a garter snake when very young. Neighborhood kids had caught one and were handling him; they held him out to me and I calmly let him flick his tongue at my hand, whereupon he immediately struck. The local authorities kept the snake for ten days to see if he died of rabies…despite the fact that reptiles do not contract or carry rabies, a fact of which I was dimly aware…an early glimpse into how ignorant adults could be.
My maternal grandmother came from a long line of truly over-the-top snake haters. During my childhood she chopped up or forced her husband to chop up at least one electrical cord and several hoses with a hoe on the general grounds that they might be snakes. Her whole family tried to inculcate this fear into their children. The most notorious example: at one family reunion, with about 70 adults and children attending, the children went to wade in a stream while the adults were setting up to cook. One child got a wet shoelace that wrapped partway around his calf. Worried that it might be a snake, he asked the other kids to look at it. They panicked and ran back to the adults.
Upon hearing the children screaming that a snake “has Bobby,” the intrepid adults abruptly ALL FLED FOR THEIR LIVES, abandoning the children to whatever fate the shoelace had in store for them. That’s right, the whole clan ran to the safety of the cars, unwilling to face a snake even with the lives of multiple children putatively at stake.
Now that’s phobic.
Is it wrong of me, that your story made me laugh?
Not at all, it’s been a family legend for decades. Completely ludicrous. 
I like snakes, but a big ol rattler nearly made my heart stop a few years ago when he waited to announce his presence until I was standing next to him during a hike. I worry more about the dog encounters snake scenario, since she has slightly less common sense than I do.
I cannot even imagine living somewhere where the snakes are dripping from the trees. ::shudder::
There are snakes that take to trees to reproduce. I was kayaking with my son in Keystone Power Lake, and he was ten yards away from me, near the shoreline in a shallow area. I urgently asked him to paddle toward me.
There were two huge black snakes mating in the tree he had just been under. Although not afraid of snakes, he was pretty gobsmacked.
I didn’t get a pic, but this is pretty much what was happening.
I said earlier that I haven’t seen rat snakes in my neighborhood- but I have seen them climbing through trees and on rooves in my father-in-law’s nearby neighborhood. I know they’re around, but I never seem to spot them around my house.
I’ve heard there are ones that fly. Well, not exactly “fly”, but they can sort of whip themselves from tree to tree. It’s like, it’s bad enough you have to see those bastards on the ground, now those fuckers have learned how to fly?
If I could afford it, I’d totally move to Ireland.
Here it is …
I was watching a car commercial last night and was reminded just how bad my phobia is. You know how sometimes they’ll show an aerial view of the cars driving down twisting mountain roads? The shapes of the roads look very snake-like and freak me out just a little.
[quote=“Malthus, post:58, topic:728282”]
Here it is …
[/QUOTE]There’s no way in hell I would ever click on that link.
One of the cottonmouth incidents I alluded to in my earlier post was the snake dropping from the limb of a cypress tree while I was paddling under it. They like to hang over the branches to sun, then, when they’re warm enough, just slip off and fall into the water. This one happened to do so while my boat was under him. I suspect he enjoyed it even less than I.
If I may anthropomorphize for a bit, here’s a possible summary from his perspective:
“Getting pretty toasty. Time for a dip. Wheee–<smack!> OW! Hey, get your stinkin’ paws offa me, you…whoawhoawhoa…ack, tree! <thump> Oof. <splash> Ugh. Play it cool, swim off with dignity. <bump> Ack, tree. Again. Swim straight, dammit.”