Tag: snakes

Snakes. Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?

Some of you may remember my serpent-related panic the first year we moved to Florida.  You can read all about it at http://www.terrilabonte.com/2016/07/the-great-snake-chase/

Time passes.  I have seen a snake here and there over the past several years and we have firmly dispatched all of them- one way or another- to a place (either physical or metaphysical) far away from our house.  Since that first snake, none have made it inside any location within my residence.  They have all been tiny and, I believe, non-venomous.  In fact, they have been basically harmless except for severely increasing the amount of cortisol in my bloodstream.

This all changed the other day when I was out spraying Round-up on the weeds around the house.   Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a colorful strip of evil incarnate poised at the doorway to our lanai.  It was about 16 inches long and made up of bands of red, black, and yellow.  When it realized I was close by, it slithered away towards the wetland behind our house.  I was relieved to see the back end of him without having to actually confront him.  The thing is that this snake was either a coral snake or a king snake.  Both are similarly colored.  Both are found in Florida.  The difference is… wait for it… the king snake is harmless and the coral snake is deadly. 

Since moving to Florida, I have heard all kinds of adorable rhymes composed to help hapless souls like myself know the difference between king snakes and coral snakes.  One popular one is “Red on black, okay for Jack.  Red on yellow, kill a fellow.”  I remembered that one when I spotted the alarming serpent, but I have to admit that I didn’t really understand to what it referred.  I have since learned that the colors mentioned in the rhyme refer to how the colored bands on the snake are arranged. If the red bands touch only black bands, it is a king snake and harmless.  On the other hand, if the red bands touch yellow bands, it is a coral snake and is extremely poisonous. 

It didn’t really matter that I didn’t understand the context of the snake mnemonic rhyme.  I wasn’t getting close enough to analyze the bands of color.  I also didn’t have the presence of mind to process exactly what I was seeing. Also, I don’t think I would have trusted the rhyme anyway. Who relies on something that sounds suspiciously like a nursery rhyme for their personal snake safety?  All I knew was that I had a visceral, loathsome reaction to the beast.  I made a very odd, guttural sound the second my brain registered the fact that I was standing less than 2 feet from a snake.  It was something between a gurgle, scream, and hiccup.  

Later in the day, after I stopped shaking, I consulted Google to try to identify the snake.  Unfortunately, I had not thought to take my phone out of my pocket and take a picture when I saw the snake.  I think I was too intent on not taking my eyes off it for even the instant it would have taken me to fumble around with the phone.  Still, I thought if I saw pictures of king snakes and coral snakes, I might recognize the band pattern on the sinister reptile by my lanai.  Unfortunately, my mind must have been so frozen by fear that it turned off automatically. I had no powers of recall. I did learn that coral snakes have extremely poisonous venom, but they also have an extremely inefficient venom delivery system.  Apparently, a coral snake doesn’t inject venom with its bite in the same way most snakes do.  One source indicated that a coral snake would basically have to gnaw on me like a dog with a bone to kill me.  That was a little bit comforting, but it also left me with a disturbing image burned into my brain. 

In my research about coral snakes, I learned that they are very solitary and reclusive creatures.  I learned that, far from wanting to gnaw me to death, they want nothing so much as to get away from me.  It is the old “they are more afraid of you than you are of them” axiom.  I seriously doubt that, but I get the idea.  The venom can kill a person, but nobody has died from a coral snake bite in the United States since the development of the anti-venom many decades ago.  Many hospitals don’t actually have the anti-venom on hand, but it apparently takes about two hours for the poison to get into a person’s bloodstream.  I guess that is why God invented helicopter medivacs. 

All in all, it isn’t a great idea to get bitten by a coral snake.  Still, I learned that it is unlikely that I will get bitten by a coral snake if I keep my eyes open and don’t go around stepping on them.  Should I suffer a coral snake bite, it is even less likely that I will die of it unless I ignore the whole incident.  I’m pretty certain I would not be ignoring a coral snake bite.  Or any snakebite, for that matter. I tend to be a bit dramatic about such things. 

I don’t know why I have the reaction I do to snakes.  This is an argument I have had with myself frequently. I love animals.  I love interacting with domestic animals.  I even love observing and interacting with wild animals, in a respectful and safe way.  There just seem to be certain animals that I can’t help but loathe.  Snakes, rats, and mice are at the top of that list.  So, basically, snakes and snake food.  I know it makes no sense whatsoever to discriminate between animal species in my level of attachment.   

I know I can’t be the only one who animal loves with such irrationality.  I used to listen to a radio talk show in California that featured two hosts who frequently discussed various absurdities of life, politics, and human nature.  This question of why we react much more sympathetically to some species of animals than others came up now and again on the show.  The hosts agreed that there is definitely a hierarchy of animals, though no one can really give any logical basis for it.  I tend to agree.  The snakes, rats, and mice have to be pretty low on that particular totem pole.

Maybe it all boils down from that fall from grace in Eden.  Genesis 3:15 tells us God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

I’m a pretty passive, nonconfrontational person for the most part.  I’m not usually known for having enemies or crushing heads.  However, when I see a snake, I’m afraid I definitely feel the enmity.

How about you?  Are there any animals that you make your skin crawl?  Why do you think it is that we can coo over a bunny, yet shrink from a rat?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a cuddly day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

The Great Snake Chase

Max was worried about lizards.  Little did we know!

Yesterday, I was on the phone with the girl from the radiology lab and went out to the garage to get something from my car.  As soon as I entered the garage, I saw a snake between our two cars.  I yelped into the phone, “There’s a snake in my garage, I’ll have to call you back.”  The girl from the radiology lab was suitably impressed and agreed that dealing with the snake took precedence over retrieving my mother’s Medicare number.  During this exchange, the snake was quickly slithering to a hiding place beneath Max’s car.  I yelled for Max to get his car keys and come help me.  He came, but without his keys, to see what the problem was.  He didn’t seem too keen to get into his car with the snake underneath it.  I opened the garage door, in the hopes that the sweet smell of freedom would entice the snake out of my living space.  I grabbed a broom and tried to roust the snake from its position.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t see beneath the car and move the broom at the same time, so all I succeeded in doing was chasing the snake back towards the door to the house instead of towards the garage door.

 The snake was huge and menacing.  Well, at least to me, he was huge and menacing.  To be clear, it was a tiny little garter snake and no real danger to anyone or anything.  Still, it freaked me out to have it in my garage. 

 After fleeing from beneath the car, he coiled in a corner behind a bookshelf.  We tried spraying him with a number of substances and trying to push him closer to the garage door, but he pretty much stayed put in a fairly inaccessible corner behind the heavy bookshelf.  We’d get him to move down a few inches and then he’d pop back into the corner.  Then, he disappeared.  I have no idea where he went.  It was eerie.  Now you see him; now you don’t. 

 Since we had proven to be inept at snake removal, I decided to call in a professional.  Never having needed a critter exclusion company (yes, that is what they are called) before, I was at a loss.  I tried calling our pest control company.  Their definition of “pest” was fairly limited.  Apparently, in their lexicon, a snake is not a pest.  Who knew?  They explained that snakes are so fast and furtive, it is usually impossible to find them if you don’t have eyes on them all the time.  They did recommend another company whose technicians apparently sit by the phone waiting for critter calls and drop everything to save the day when someone calls for service.  In my mind, the whole operation sounds like a scene from Ghostbusters.  At any rate, they rush to your home because they, too, believe that there is little or no chance of finding the snake after about an hour or so.  News flash… you pay whether they find the snake or not.  Color me not surprised. 

 The technician came and he was very nice.   There were a lot of “yes ma’am’s” going on.  He carried a long, heavy pair of tongs (which I am sure would have been overkill if he had, in fact, actually found the snake).   He did pretty much what we had already done, except for the panicking part.  He kicked around everything in the garage.  He peered behind things with a flashlight.  No snake.  Our technician could not even theorize about where the snake could have gone.  He refuted all the possibilities I mentioned.   He was marginally reassuring in that he confirmed that it had to be just a little garter snake and would find its way out when it was hungry or thirsty, if he had not already vacated the premises.  The technician looked at the garage door and identified a couple of places where the door didn’t absolutely reach the floor of the garage.  They were tiny, itsy bitsy holes, but he theorized that the snake might have entered through these points.  He suggested we get a garage door guy to come in and fix the seal and he put down some sticky snake traps. 

 That night, I did not sleep much.  I left the light on because I could not rid my mind of the idea that the garter snake was going to somehow get into the house, wind his way back to my bedroom, and wiggle up onto my bed.  The technician assured us that the snake could not climb more than about four inches, but I’m a skeptic. 

 The next morning, when I tentatively entered the garage to get into my car, I saw that there was a “mass o’ snake” on one of the traps.  Truth be told, it didn’t look exactly like the snake I saw the day before, but I rationalized that it might be just that this snake seemed to be upside down and the belly might have been a different color than the topside I saw as it slithered around.  Seeing the snake on the trap, I assumed it was an ex-snake, dead from the combination of stuff we sprayed on him and the trauma of being unable to extricate itself from the trap.  Later, though, Max went out and saw that there were actually two snakes on the trap and they were alive and kicking.  He tried to dispose of them with a rake, but they headed in different directions.  He was able to kill one and the other dispatched into the front lawn.

 Many of you are probably horrified that we were trying to kill the snakes.  I know, I know.  They are harmless.  They are good for the environment.  They were there before people were.  I get all that.  I just don’t want to live with them.  Once they encroach into my living space, it is war!  First, anyone living in my home except me should be paying rent.  Secondly, I have a finely tuned startle reflex.  I can barely handle the phone ringing unexpectedly without jumping.  The random sight of wiggling snakes does nothing good for my blood pressure.  Those snakes creep me out. 

The garage door guy came yesterday and fixed the door.  It would seem that there are no more access points. I prayed vigorously for the intervention of St. Patrick, who I am assuming must be the patron saint of snake removal.   We have had no more snake sightings since then.  However, I still can’t let it go.  I’m hoping that a few more snakeless days will reduce the adrenaline and cortisol rushing continuously through my body.  In the meantime, I’m sleeping with a rolled up towel under my bedroom door!

Anyone else have any critter exclusion stories to share?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  In the meantime, here’s hoping for a reptile-free day for all of us!

Terri 🙂