Back in the day I could be seen shirtless in shorts, strolling along Hollywood Blvd near Vine St, black hair streaming to my shoulders, with Colombian rosy boa Noah wrapped around my neck.* At home in Yucca Flats (corner of Yucca & Cahuenga) Noah often relaxed on a windowsill, discomfiting passersby. Imagine my shock decades later and hundreds of miles away when I saw my shirtless double in a super-duper-market necklaced by a Colombian rosy boa. Eerie…
Nobody gave me a second glance. Much weirder folks infested those roads.
I love snakes to an unreasonable degree. One of my fondest memories was when my father took me to Narcisse for my seventeenth birthday.
I work at a camp petting zoo in the summer, and I find it very soothing for my anxiety attacks to just sit down with the ball python curled around my arm or shoulders.
Sure. Snakes are cool. Aside from species that are actually dangerous to people, the only one we’d hesitate to put on our shoulders is a Garter Snake. They don’t need venom- they PEE on your hands and arms, and it’s an odor to be avoided.
Daughter of a herpetologist, so no. Not scared of them but I certainly respect them and keep my distance from venomous ones.
A few years ago a bunch of guests suddenly streamed into the lobby, babbling about a snake. I grabbed a flashlight to see if it was a rattlesnake or not (the other venomous snake in Arizona, the coral snake, is almost never seen here). As it turns out it was a baby California King snake, so I just picked it up and moved it to where it was trying to go. The lone guest brave enough to follow me out couldn’t believe I had done that.
Back in my EMT days one of my ambulance partners was a manic herpephile. If in no hurry he demanded to stop at all likely spots where he’d run into the brush and return with one or more wrigglers. He usually tried not to frighten our transportees; I don’t think he provoked any coronaries.
In my desert Rock-Climbing and Back-Country Rescue class I learned to carry a stick when ascending. Before reaching for a handhold not clearly visible, hit the spot with the stick first. This prompts any rattlesnake dozing there to give warning.
Many moons ago Mrs. Cretin worked for a corporation whose building was near a brushy area (San Diego chaparral). Someone encountered a snake in the restroom, nobody would even approach it. Mrs. Cretin was called to the scene because she was (rightly) considered to be the person who’d know what to do. About a dozen people there by now.
She walked in, instantly identified the serpent as a Gopher Snake, didn’t even break her stride as she simply walked over to it and gently picked it up. The “crowd” gasped loudly and then quickly parted like the Red Sea as Mrs.C carried the basilisk outside and released it into the brush. Cracked her up. They acted like she was handling a live hand grenade or something.
I’m very fond of snakes – admittedly, having lived my whole life in England, danger from them isn’t a concern. Great Britain has four species of snake (Ireland is snakeless, of course), none of them very often met with; three are harmless – the fourth, the adder, is uncommon, and a rather feeble apology for a venomous creature: human deaths from its bite have been known, but occur very rarely indeed. As with quite a number of posters on this thread, I like snakes but am less keen on spiders; not the most acute of phobias – and it annoys me: fascinating creatures, wish I could like them.
A matter which I have the feeling has been aired on SDMB before: but is there any truth in the notion – held by a fair number of folk – that overall more women than men, have a strong instinctive loathing of snakes? (Religious types sometimes cite Genesis 3, v 15 – in the aftermath of the serpent-and-Eden business – “And I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman…”) A tiny bit of anecdotal stuff of my own; concerning a long-term girlfriend of mine, and a female “cousin-by-marriage”. Both are very extreme ophidiophobes – though with no problem with spiders; whereas the respective men in their lives – myself and my cousin – like snakes; but experience some uneasiness (well short of a dramatic degree of phobia) vis-a-vis spiders.
And I wonder how many unfortunates there are, who are highly phobic of both snakes and spiders? General picture got, would seem to be that if it’s a problem to you at all; it’s most often “one or the other”.
Yeah, and they’re easy to ID. :). I was one sunning at my apartment complex once; it start vibrating its tail like it was a rattlesnake and was like “rattlesnake! I’m a rattlesnake! Lady!!” I just laughed.
I had a Califorina King for a while. One of my neighbors caught a garter snake and brought it over because they knew I was into snakes. I put it in the cage with my CK so he would have a friend! You know what happened. Instantly.
I have lived in south Georgia for 36 years and still have not come across a venomous snake in the wild. Granted, I don’t go out where they’re likely to be very often. The first snake I caught back in '85 was an eastern king snake. They’re quite mellow and really seem to like being handled. A red rat snake a kid brought to class wasn’t so chill and promptly bit me. It didn’t break the skin of my finger. Another time I took a non-venomous oak snake in to class. I told the kids to be cool, or it might get angry and bite. It took that cue to latch onto the edge of my hand. Bedlam ensued with many teenage girls squealing for dear life.
I’m not bothered by garden-variety snakes (i.e. the garter kind), but am warier of large, mean-acting ones of uncertain provenance, like the suspected moccasin I nearly stepped on in Texas while carrying two bags of groceries up the walk to our back door.
Southeast Texas was a paradise for legless reptiles. Mrs. J. (who has a marked aversion to them) recalls the time she was going down the same walk and a sizable specimen reared up from the nearby vegetation and hissed at her (we nicknamed him Slobodan). Then there was the huge green reptile who hung out near the barn. The Sears man told us it was the biggest snake he’d ever seen.
As long as they mind their own business I’m pretty much OK with snakes. However it is unnecessary to import them (our next-door neighbor in South Dakota did that, corralling snakes down by the Missouri River and returning them to his yard, ostensibly to keep the rodents down).
I have always liked snakes, even as a wee child. They are fascinating critters! Once, during the late 1980s, my cousin and I posed with a fourteen-foot Burmese python named “Satan” at one of the local malls. An animal exhibition was underway, and most people were having pics taken with the lion cubs. No, we chose “Satan”, instead! I need to find that pic. It is around here, somewhere…
I’m a sucker for various reptiles! I likes me some ectotherms…
