Dystopian Paradise

So a week or so ago, we decided to take the family out for an evening walk. We thought it’d definitely put Kaden to sleep, and be good for us to get some exercise. Now, mind you this was around 9pm, so it was getting dark, but our neighborhood is a nice one, well lit, all that jazz, so we were comfortable taking a quick stroll around the block by the school and park, and then back to our house. Things were going just fine until we turned the corner and headed through the edge of the park, when we noticed that our quiet suburban neighborhood had been invaded by a snake.

Now, I’m not going to say that I have an irrational fear of snakes, but I have a significant disdain for them existing within my sight, and would much prefer to never see one again. But as it turns out, we saw this snake (thankfully 10-15 feet before we got to it), crossing the path just ahead of us. Now, this is not the simple little garter snake I’m used to from Missouri. I’ve only seen maybe three real snakes since we moved to Texas, and in order I’m about to tell you their stories.

1. Snake the First: Leaving work very late one evening, as I was driving across the parking lot there was a large (read: greater than three feet) snake making his way home from work as well, or perhaps he worked 3rd shift and was just heading in, all the same, our paths crossed, although simultaneously too close and not close enough, as you’ll see with the next encounter.
2. The second snake Kassy & I saw whilst driving home one evening, in the middle of an intersection near our house. This intelligent beast was slithering his way across four plus lanes of traffic, diagonally through the intersection we were turning left at. I simultaneously lost my breath, swerved around the snake, and for reasons still unbeknownswt to me, used the power locks to lock all the doors in our car. Now granted this snake was quite possibly the largest, non-captive, snake I’ve ever seen, but he still probably wouldn’t have been capable of operating the door of our car, let alone as we passed at 15mph.
3. The most recent snake was probably similar in size to the first, somewhere between three and maybe four feet long, but seeing as how we were out-of-doors, as the kids say, it scared the living daylights out of me. Not to mention it was dark, and who knows how many others were there just waiting for us to cross their paths. Anyway, now anytime I have to go out into the yard after dark I’m get anxious worrying about whether or not there is a snake in our backyard.

So without saying “I have an irrational fear of snakes,” I believe I have proved my point. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.