Help, a snake

Piel · Jun 7, 2006

Dee I would be afraid to run over one with the car. I am too afraid when I got out of the car it would be right there with just enough life left in it to bite me.

Granny you are absolutely right about being phobic. Phobias are irrational fears so no amount of reasoning or fact makes a difference. When I was younger I went to a therapist about my snake phobia because it has kept me from doing things I wanted to do. The therapist's idea was first looking at pictures of them, then watching them on TV, the progressing to a zoo, and eventually handling a nonvenemous snake. Needless to say that therapy didn't work for me...I never went back after th first visit.

Jonny if you are under 68 and single and rich call me....1-800-noprenup

JonnyCoop · Jun 7, 2006

:chorus: :chorus: :chorus:

Ladies, Ladies..... Please!! :laugh:

Sorry -- flat broke, actually. :sheesh:

Dee4707 · Jun 7, 2006

JonnyCoop said:
:chorus: :chorus: :chorus:

Ladies, Ladies..... Please!!

Sorry -- flat broke, actually. :sheesh:

I think this thread has made us all a little on the goofy side. :laugh:

Anybody else think so too.

Piel, I can relate to what you're saying. When I was a little girl, I would help my dad in the garden. Well, guess what was in the garden. When my dad saw it, he jumped back and for a split second I saw fear in him. Now my dad was my hero, who wasn't afraid of anything. After that happened as a child I thought if dad is afraid of snakes, then I should be afraid. As I grew older the fear never left me. I used to live in an upstairs apartment in a house and my landlord lived downstairs. One Saturday morning I was going out and there was a snake sunning itself on the sidewalk, I turned around and went back upstairs and didn't leave until I had to go to work on Monday morning. I was to the point I couldn't even look at them on TV, in a book or go to the zoo. YIKES!!! I'm a little better now, I can see them on TV, quick glances in a book, don't want to go to the zoo to see any animal let alone .the reptile house.

I guess my reason for telling the story is how my phobia got started, I think.

Dee

Blue Bead · Jun 7, 2006

Granny...I know exactly what you mean about phobias. An aunt of mine had a horrible fear of snakes; she was really incapacitated by it. Just the mention of the word, "snake," would do her in, LOL. Once when I drove over to see her and my uncle, as I entered the back door I found her in the kitchen ironing clothes with a vengence and sobbing her heart out. From her choked-out words I discovered she had gone into the garage to get something, and while rummaging around looking through boxes on the floor, she disturbed a snake which quickly began slithering away. It scared her half to death! She bolted out of the attached garage and back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

She was 73 at the time and had this incredible fear of snakes since she was a young girl. Since her husband had gone out to do errands I told her I would go into the garage and make sure the snake was gone. She was so terrified she wouldn't let me open the door from the kitchen to get into the garage, LOL. I had to go out the back door of the house and get in though the utility door to the building. After checking nearly every nook and cranny in that building, I found a garter snake curled up in a corner next to an old wooden tool box. It was about a foot long. It started scooting when it saw me. The garage door was up and I "helped" it out with a broom, LOL, and then closed the garage door. My aunt refused to go with me back to the garage so that I could prove to her, and allay her anxiety, that the snake was gone. It is really terrible to be that afraid of anthing but I know how it feels because I'm terrified of garden spiders. I was bitten as a child and had a nasty reaction to the bite. To this day those things just give me the creeps!

SeaniBu · Jun 7, 2006

JonnyCoop said:
My friend does that with mice, but he uses one of those "catch but not harm" traps where he can just pick it up and toss them out in a field someplace; I should think if you're going to go that route, a glue trap is just not the way to go.

Not only does this remind me of the Sienfeld that Elaine hired Kramer and Nuemann to kidnap a dog and drive it out into the country side, and it came back.
A house I lived in with roommates and one of them did the exact same thing - alas for some reason we wound up with more mice and they would just sit there "gazing" at you sometimes. Like, "are you going to take me back to the field?" That stopped when we found them in the stove - by way of cooking a turkey.
The Crow problem they are having in Tokyo right now - the only reason they have so many is be cause of us. Something a little more for thought is the over population of a particular "critter" in one area. If you have too many of one animal in a single area they will not survive there either. Also, if the area people took them to was preferably habitable by them in the first place, they would be there already, otherwise they will come back or have their place taken, "ah vacancy at the house Martha, we can get in now!".

Very much like the issues we are having in the area I live in with the prairie dogs, Mountain Lions and Bears. Prairie dogs over populate an area and spread out and the males who don't mate acutely commit suicide. MT lions are very territorial, and will also spread out. We have lost a few cats in the neighbor hood and a couple of kids have been attacked. Yep, they get taken back into the wild - unless they attack humans - but the tags are proving they come back.

Anyway just a few more thoughts on the balance between being humane and realistic. Yes the heart says be nice, but when kids are getting diagnosed with plague from playing in the local baseball field and loosing legs - not to mention the pets - it is time to get real. I would rather Grganny kill the thing then have a accident because she sees the thing and falls or something.

2 sides to every coin, and sometimes it HAS TO flip.

Grgranny · Jun 8, 2006

I am sorry to say that I am just like Blue Beads aunt. I did get brave enough to take one step on the patio to water the plants on the table. I'm still shaking. I bought a lot of moth balls today. My daughter and hubby and granddaughter are coming Fri night and will put them to work. I have been so afraid they would be in my garage, I thought about running the car in the garage with the door shut. I know better but if I'm on a different level of the house it might be ok. We can joke about it but it really isn't funny.

Dee4707 · Jun 8, 2006

Grgranny said:
I thought about running the car in the garage with the door shut. I know better but if I'm on a different level of the house it might be ok. We can joke about it but it really isn't funny.

Grgranny, please don't do that, wait until your family comes to help you.

Dee

Piel · Jun 10, 2006

Grgranny I hope family have arrived and you are feeling better.

Must be a bad year for snakes. Look what was found in downtown Charleston....

Possible copperhead
sighting causes stir

Matthew Thompson
Daily Mail staff

Friday June 09, 2006
On a normal day, Dave Riebe is a typical Charleston parking meter enforcement supervisor.

But for one moment Thursday, Riebe stopped writing tickets downtown and became a snake wrangler.

Riebe was among more than 20 Charleston citizens who were startled by the appearance of what seemed to be a copperhead on Capitol Street. The snake was first spotted wrapped around a lamppost outside of Ivor's Trunk boutique.

The incident occurred during the Thursday lunch hour.

Riebe, 37, was working in the area when he joined a group of people gawking at the creature.

People who saw the snake believed it was a copperhead, and a state natural resources official who later saw pictures said it very well could have been. But sometimes non-poisonous snakes with similar markings are mistaken for copperheads.

Nevertheless, the snake caused a furor downtown.

"Well, at first I knew I wasn't going to go pick it up," Riebe said. "We were all trying to wait for someone to come and get it."

After some careful thought, Riebe and fellow meter enforcement officer Pat Jones decided to step in and remove the serpent. Using a stick, Riebe picked the snake up, keeping it at a safe distance from any of his extremities.

"I wasn't just going to go grab it with my bare hands," Riebe said. "We all were just trying not to get hit by it."

Riebe placed the snake inside a cake pan on loan from the nearby Chesapeake Bagel Bakery. He then set it free along the river near the Kanawha Boulevard.

Ann Booth was walking to a business meeting when she joined the curious throng. She took out her cellular telephone to take pictures of the scene to preserve its posterity.

Booth is an associate with Charleston public relations firm, Maple Creative

"I saw this snake being carted around in some kind of sandwich tray box," Booth said. "And I just couldn't believe it. I mean the Legislature is not even in town."

Copperheads are usually found in swampy, wooded or rocky areas.

Kathy Leo, wildlife diversity coordinator for the state Division of Natural Resources in Elkins, examined one of the photographs that Booth took with her cell phone and declared the image too small to be decisive. She said the snake appeared to be a copperhead from the markings on the body, although she couldn't confirm anything because she couldn't clearly see the head.

Copperheads have triangular heads, Leo said.

"Copperheads are the most widespread of the venomous snakes," Leo said. "You can find them pretty much anywhere, but they are usually found along streams."

Various reports from the scene said the snake might have bitten a passerby who tried to pick it up.

Dan Combs, manager of Dynamic Displays at 231 Capitol St., said a man wearing a green T-shirt and a baseball cap approached the snake. The snake then snapped at the man, Combs said.

"He just went in to pick it up with his bare hands," Combs, 47, said. "The snake got kind of excited and bit him. Then the guy just walked away like it was nothing."

Riebe said it didn't appear the snake got his full fangs inside the guy's arm.

"I don't think it really bit him," Riebe said. "That snake definitely looked out of place."

Contact writer Matthew Thompson at [email protected] or 348-4834.

I love this....

"I saw this snake being carted around in some kind of sandwich tray box," Booth said. "And I just couldn't believe it. I mean the Legislature is not even in town."

Yes, we love our politicians!

Grgranny · Jun 11, 2006

We do have water mocassins and cottonmouths, and one I think is called hognose or something like that. I forget which is poisonous, I think maybe the cottonmouth. They're more around water too. My "kids" got a lot done. I have been making myself go out on the patio.

Piel · Jun 11, 2006

Hognose are not venomous, cottonmouths are pitvipers like copperheads and rattlesnakes and are poisonous. Water moccasins are in some areas the same things as cottonmouths and in other areas are a nonpoisonous water snake. I don't trust or like any of them.....just as afraid of a baby garter snake as I would be of a king cobra.

Help, a snake

Piel

On Edge

JonnyCoop

Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin

Blue Bead

SeaniBu

Grgranny

Da' Spellin' Homegirl

Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin

Piel

On Edge

Grgranny

Da' Spellin' Homegirl

Piel

On Edge

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