TheBanyanTree: Snake Whisperer

[Barb Edlen]

Oh, the amusing irony of your new sobriquet!! <g>

On 6/20/2012 3:10 PM, Pam Lawley wrote:
> 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
>