TheBanyanTree: Snake Whisperer

[Pam Lawley]

The building I work in is conveniently placed about three blocks from
my house, and half off and half on base.  You can go on base and drive
thru the main gate and get here, or you can park on the 'off base'
side and slide your "CAC" card to get thru the turnstyle and get on
base into the building.  Because of this set up, it's a whole bunch of
yards from the gate to the actual building.  Yards and yards of cement
walkway - nice WARM walkway in the summer for the serpents!

I was walking out earlier to bring a piece of empty Tupperware back to
my car when a friend stopped me to warn me that there was a snake out
by the gate.  Her intentions were to keep me from being startled when
I saw it - and then freaking out!  Bless her heart...

Not to be scared off by a silly little snake (yeah, right!), I went on
down the sideway, extremely alert for slithering.  But I didn't see
any - and that's worse!!!    If I didn't know that there was a snake
nearby, I'd have been fine.  If I could have seen it, and known
exactly where it was to go around, I'd have been fine.  (Or at least
finer...)

But I did know that there was one somewhere, and I couldn't see it.
So about ten or fiften yards shy of the gate I slowed way down...
There is 'landscaping' towards that end... pine needles and short
little bushes.  Awesome hiding for a sneaky snake!!!

So I looked and I looked - and THERE!, in the closest little bush was
the snake!  Obviously standing up on its hind scales with its head and
neck sticking out LOOKING AT ME watching me searching for it!!
Me-zero.  Snake-one.

Okay.  I knew where it was and I was far enough away that it couldn't
strike me!  Oh, I recognized that it could decide to close in for an
attack, but I was on the balls of my feet ready to run like a girl!!!
(Running like a girl means running and screaming at the same time!!!!)

Anyway, there was little Mr. Snake standing there looking at me and I
thought he looked a little peeved!!  He kept sticking out his tongue
and it was a LONG tongue, and it looked forked to me, but I couldn't
swear to that.  For the record - I was sticking my tongue out back at
him though!!

And I started talking to him, trying to extoll the virtues of
slithering on off onto the grounds AWAY from the walkway, basking in
the sun without anybody bothering him!  He wouldn't be able to scare
me, and we people walking back and forth couldn't bother him!  I know
that I talk with my hands (and arms!), and I was using them with gusto
trying to convince this snake.  He had a little pointy looking black
head and his underside was kind of a silvery-gray.  Or maybe it was
really white.  Whatever.  And in the big scheme of things, he was not
the biggest snake out there...  I have no clue how long he was since
from the neck down he was coiled under the bush, but he was about the
circumference of my pinky.

At one point the little brat stood up straighter and showed another
inch or so of his length.  I just backed up another yard or so from
the bush!!  Ha!!  And I just talked louder!

We stood there together having this conversation - I would talk, he
would stick out his tongue!! - for a good five or six minutes...  And
then I must have said something especially offensive because he ducked
totally down into the bush.

Great!  Now I couldn't see him at all!!!!!  If I tried to walk by was
he going to dart and try to attack?!  Was he lying in wait??  Crap.  I
tried talking to him some more and even apologizing for hurting his
little slimy feelings, but he didn't show again.

Finally, FINALLY, I got the nerve to walk on by, on the OTHER side of
the walkway!!  And when I came back in the gate, I was searching
nervously again, but I don't know what ever happened to him, where he
went, or what he's doing.  I was watching under cars in the parking
lot, wondering if there was another snake cousin laying in wait near
my tires.  Gawd, talk about skittish!!!  Snakes in every shadow...

Anyway, this building of cubicles is also a building of glass windows.
 And there were evidently a whole CROWD of folks inside, looking out
and watching my interaction with this snake.  Some guy just walked by
me and called me The Snake Whisperer.

Great.

Pam