Legless Lizards My Ass....

Occasionally, like any normal 30 year old woman, I surf the net and look at photos of lizards. You know, so I can find out if the blue bellied beasties in my yard are poisonous and going to gather together in a cold blooded strike force against me one day if I keep snapping photos of them. Never once asking their permission, never once asking them to sign a waiver that states I am free to use their likeness in perpetuity, never once considering that my heavy humanoid breath blowing across their scales might be delivering a stagnant breeze of ill will and fear into their poor little lizard hearts.....
Anyways during one such lizard look up on the net I ran across.....legless lizards.
HA!
I wasn't born yesterday, no one dropped me on my head and my leg can't be pulled any harder. I'm dragging out all the colloquialisms in my arse...ok I mean my arsenal but wouldn't arse be a fricking riot instead? Made ya blink didn't it?
The wool has long since been removed from my eyes, I'm no dweeby dunce, I know about legless lizards only where I come from they're called Ssssssssssssssssnakes. Genetics Sche-metics, if it looks like a s-s-s-snake...it's a s-s-s-s-snake.
BLECK!
I know about snakes too, oh I know all about them, snakes ARE EVIL.
I'm not throwing any biblical references around here either, I just know from looking at them and by the very nature of their existence that they ARE EVIL. I mean you don't have to have a degree in slitherin' snake-ology to figure this out, all it takes is one interaction with the belly crawlin' varmints to realize THEY ARE EVIL.
I can not stress this enough, I'd need a helicopter, a bull horn and a big ass stick to make my point as crystal clear as I can, SNAKES ARE EVIL.
Like any gal who's got a pure and unfettered hatred of snakes I have a brother who must have a few screws loose, a few marbles lost and a bat or two in his belfry (see colloquialisms all over the dang place today) because this boy....liked snakes. I mean he deliberately went about the fields LOOKING for them, not realizing looking for a snake is just looking for trouble. It's like walking down a dark alley in the middle of the night with a hundred dollar bill stuck to your forehead and a can of whip cream in your hand...it's just stupid.
Occasionally he'd find one of...them...them wiggling, slithering, squirming, twisting, writhing little demons and brandish it in the air like he'd won a fricking trophy. I developed super vision when he did this, I could be a million yards away and my eyes would zoom in on the thing he held in his hand.
My heart would slam against the inside of my chest, hard enough to jolt me out of my frozen immobility and I'd holler across the slowly decreasing distance between my brother and I as he smiled happily and advanced on me to show off his new..*shudders* friend.
"Michael, don't come near me with that thing!!!"
"Why? It's not slimy, you think it's slimy don't you? It's NOT slimy."
Oh yeah, right like that's gonna make all the difference in the world, the evil spawn of satan isn't SLIMY????? Well bring it on then boy, bring it on. HA!
NO, H, E, double hockey sticks NO!
I'd calmly start backing up in a dignified, lady like retreat and holler to him,
"Michael, if you come near me with it I am going to freak out, I mean seriously freak out, I am GOING TO FREAK OUT!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME???"
And then, I'd hit him with the best piece of logic that cuts through a younger brother's delight at his sister's drooling, backwards scramble away from him, I hit him where it hurt most....I jabbed him right straight through the heart of his deep and loyal love of s-s-s-s-snakes.
"Michael, if you come near me with that snake, I will freak out and I will hurt the snake. Do you understand, I don't want to but I will, by accident.....but I will."
Michael would pause, a frown wrinkling his forehead as he cradled the tiny bit of earthly evil in his hands and now it was he who would back up. A truce realized, at least for the moment.
I have never hurt a snake, let me make that clear.
Unless seeing a grown woman shudder like a Californian earthquake is damaging to the snake's psyche, I have never hurt a snake.
Not even when I lived back home in Canada and would be merrily traipsing down our country drive way, on my way to check the mail. Day dreaming about ice cream, how to get ice cream and wondering when I'd get ice cream again, and then it would happen....
I would freeze midstep and suddenly become aware on some unconscious level that's hammering on the door of my conscious level to start haulin' ass because "look down, look down, there is evil about!"
To this day I remember, finally looking down and a s-s-s-s-snake was curled up in the middle of the drive way and I had already taken a step over and was frozen for an eternity of 2 whole seconds realizing I had yet to complete the step.
I think I levitated, I seriously think I must have spontaneously levitated for a moment, for one gigantic physics defying bound later I was over and past the curled up evil sunning itself evilly in the middle of our now evilly tainted driveway, I leapt forward in giant strides and didn't stop till I was off the gravel driveway and on to the safety of the cement road where I shivered and quivered and broke out in enough goosebumps that I hardly recognized myself....and still I couldn't quell the rising stomach churning nauseated feeling that can only be described as "ughhhhewwwwwwwwwwecccckkk"
I am not sure the logic behind my next actions though it made a hell of a lot of sense at the time but I started freaking out a wee bit more even though the snake was no where near me and beat at my ankles as if it was twining itself around my limbs, I ripped off my sneakers and bounded a good 6 feet away on the cement in case any snakes should be lurking within in them and kept on the move, ya know, dodge and weave, a moving target is a less likely to be snake attacked target.....
My brother Michael thinks that is hilarious, he tries to explain how silly the whole jumping in the air like a mentally un-balanced ballerina doesn't do anything, especially if the snake is practically a mile away by now....uh huh, he thinks I'M CRAZY? He who looks for, touches and...l-l-l-l-likes s-s-s-s-snakes?
To this day ever since the un-expected encounter with a supposedly harmless snake that deliberately chose the middle of our drive way as a lovely place to snooze so he could mess with my mind when I went to check the mail I have been on alert for snakes.
In California there are...r-r-r-rattle snakes and I'm sorry I just can't wrap my head around that, any snake is bad enough and now there are supposedly musical ones that can BITE YOU AND POISON YOU?
When I walk outside I have my very own patented snake expert walk that I do, every step I take I bring my foot down on to the ground like thunder, as a warning to any hidden or invisible snakes in the area to get the hell outta here cause I'm a comin' through. You think I'm exaggerating?
The last earthquake california had I'm pretty sure was just me out back getting some oranges off the tree.
I wish I was joking, but you have no idea how unbelievably tiring it is to stomp my way through 15 feet of rugged terrain (aka grass and dirt) to the orange tree, with my head swiveling about like it's coming unhinged as I'm becoming unhinged trying to grow a third eye so I can keep an extra look out for hissing coils of evil in the grass. Luckily the neighbors don't think too much of me stomping and scowling about with my arms full of oranges and eyes bugging outta my head, they just think "There goes that Canadian again."
Legless lizards my ass. You know who came up with that don't you? S-s-s-s-snake lovers, trying to put a nice spin on the un-spinnable, you can call them marshmallow frosted dimples for all I care, if it's long and squirmy and has no legs....it's A SNAKE.
p.s. May I just say how calm and collected I am being right now, if you fully understand my deep and abiding vault of distaste and...dare I admit it..fear I have of s-s-s-snakes then you'd be clapping your hands at my being able to add the photo of one to my blog. Also that all my typing hasn't been reduced to lkc.nasqw .kvncc,m nm,xhfjkd.
By the way, what cruel joke is it that I should meet and marry the love of my life, a California resident and find out that the s-s-s-s-snakes around here are at least 4 or 5 times as long as the ones we had back home in rural Nova Scotia. I snapped the photo of the s-s-s-s-snake above with our telephoto lens from the safety of our patio and that was a year ago and still I have not calmed down or quit absent mindedly beating my ankles to be sure no s-s-s-s-snakes have snuck up on me and taken up residence there......
The only thing that makes me feel a little tiny itsy bitsy miniscule sized amount better about that s-s-s-s-snake photo is that we identified it as a California King s-s-s-s-snake and supposedly they eat rattle s-s-s-s-snakes.
Oh yeah, I know I feel a hell of a lot better knowing the greenery that looks so pretty at a distance is woven with insanenly long living ropes of evil with bellies full of rattles...ughhhh.
S-s-s-s-snakes...they're just so very wrong.