Snakes

A dream/nightmare about an abundance of rattlesnakes led me to recall the times I have encountered snakes in the wild. This does not include snakes in captivity (especially since my brother used to own a snake).

When I was probably five years old, I was with my cousins Rayce and Krishelle in Fillmore Canyon. We were sitting and talking on a picnic table a little bit away from the adults, talking about scary animals, such as black panthers. Suddenly, we heard a noise, and we deduced that it was a rattlesnake, so we ran away. However, it very well might have been an insect or something else--I think the topic of conversation just made us a little paranoid.

Another year when I was young, my cousin Brandon or maybe my uncle Ken had caught a rattlesnake and killed it and cooked it. I think my brother David had some and said it tasted like chicken.

In fall 1997, we were camping again, and Brandon caught a rattler or two. He had a disturbing need to kill things, so he had the dead snake sitting on the pavement, its organs spread out and still beating. My mom asked him for the skin, so he gave it to her.

On my mission, I noticed a dead snake squashed on the road in the tiny town of Harrington, WA.

In August 2010,  I was running in Bountiful, and I looked at the sidewalk and thought, "My, that's a huge worm!" But while I was above it--with one foot on either side--I realized it was too squirmy for a worm, so it was a small snake. It probably wasn't poisonous, and it was pretty small, so I wasn't scared.

But on September 11, 2010, my family was all camping near Scipio, Utah. We saw a bunch of people from the adjoining camp walking by. At the front of the group, someone was holding a large stick out in front of him with a large snake perched on it. Soon after, one of my uncles went over to that group and asked about it--it had been a rattlesnake in or near their campsite, so they transferred it away. I thought it was idiotic to carry the snake away like that, and I worried about it coming to our campsite.

I'm OK with not getting a good look at rattlesnakes.