| « Beautiful Day | Gwa Sha » |
I'm Dumb!
Yesterday, while playing a round of disc golf with my friend Trey and a few other people, I found a little snake lounging about in the far corner of the park. He was about 18 inches long and definitely not a garter snake. At first I couldn't tell if he was dead or not, so I nudged him a bit with my foot, turns out he was alive and wiggled a bit. He must've been pretty groggy because it took a couple nudges for him to really react to me. Then the little guy decided he didn't like me and started to coil up. OK, garter snakes DO NOT coil up when they are bothered, they simply slither away. However, this little snake didn't have a rattle, so I assumed he wasn't a rattlesnake. Since rattlesnakes are the only dangerous snakes that I'm aware of in our area, I decided to see what this little bugger had.
So I taunted him, yes taunted him, a bit more. He coiled a little tighter and then BAM! He striked my foot. Pretty sweet, I've never had a snake coil, and strike at me and actually get me. I've experienced the coil and the strike, but never a hit. I did have shoes on with a thick rubber toe, and the snake missed anything he could've penetrated and struck the rubber toe, which he more or less bounced off of.
At this point I decided to invite my friends over to the party. We are all pretty nature friendly so we wouldn't actually hurt the little guy, but it was fun watching him strike, Trey grabbed his golf towel and dangled it near the snake, who was still coiled and swaying back and forth. He striked Trey's towel, then my towel, then another of our friends walked up, looked at the snake, and said, "That's a baby rattlesnake" and walked away! HOLY CRAP! Here I am playing with a baby rattlesnake and letting it strike my foot! What an idiot!
I decided to count my luck and walk away!
Evidently, rattlesnakes grow their rattles while they mature, this guy just didn't have one yet. Lesson learned, don't play with baby rattlesnakes, that is bad!
7 comments
Ryan, this is your almost totally gray haired mother...let me thank you for that before commenting. Thank you for my almost totally gray hair.
You goofball. You are just like your gpa. He grew up playing with rattles, but they were not babies without rattles.
Now, your gma...she was a rattler hunter...when faced with a rattler on a trail once she managed to get him under the spell of her moving rifle and he became toast!
So glad you were wearing rubbertoed shoes...
You know why all the animal handlers on TV say things like, "Don't try this at home"?...It's because you REALLY shouldn't try it at home. Regardless of apparent innocuousness, it's always a good rule of thumb to not taunt the wildlife. Makes for a good story though. Glad no one got bit.
Whatever, the only reason they say, "Don't try this at home." is because they don't want ppl finding out how harmless it really is and then the TV ppl would lose their jobs. People would walk around picking up vipers by the neck, and once you've done it yourself there is really no reason to watch someone else do it on TV.
That's why I don't watch TV, I've pretty much done everything at least twice, so it's boring to watch all the amatuers getting paid to pick up snakes and wrestle penguins and such.
See, that's why I like bears. You just can't mistake a dangerous bear. They all are. There's no "what kind is he". He is a bear! He's got teeth. He will eat you.
That said, if it coils and strikes, it's probably not good to play with. Glad you didn't actually get bitten.
Wow! You've wrestled a penguin?! Twice!!! Now that's impressive...lol.
RYAN THOMAS GWILLIM! I can totally see you doing this...and laughing the whole time; ammused like a 2 year old. Glad to hear you did not have flip-flops on! Thank you Lord!
Now that is a great story. You know, I've heard that the venom of the younger snakes is actually more potent than that of grown up snakes. I wish I could have been there for that.
Comment feed for this post