Now *HERE* is a story I can relate to! (Courtesy of the Circle website) It's entitled "Too Many Snakes", by Bob Staib....who I can only hope would not mind my posting it here!
Too Many Snakes
While walking my coon dog, Blue, the other day, I
came across a snake in the woods. The feeling
one gets when confronting a copperhead snake
is very similar to the one gets when the news of
cancer is given. It is a startling shock to the
system, and you are paralyzed for a moment.
Then you are faced with the two choices Nature
gives you: fight or flight. Most of us are ill
equipped to fight; we aren't carrying a shotgun or
a big stick to fend off the snake. So, most of us
chose flight; and, as we are running we bump
into the local hunter. Breathless and scared by
the snake, he comforts us. Don't worry, he says,
he will go back and kill the snake for you. Boy
are you relieved. You won't have to face that
snake anymore. A warm feeling comes over you,
sort of like the time Blue accidentally urinated on
your leg, mistaking it for a fence post.
Months go by, and you run across that same
hunter in the woods. You ask him about the
snake, and he says yes, he killed it. That news
makes you very happy. However, the bliss is
broken, when, on the way back home you
stumble across a baby copperhead. DAMN, that
hunter told me he killed the snake, and now I find
there are more. Will those copperheads ever
cease rearing their ugly heads? This time you
chose to fight the snake, so you pick up a stick
and kill it. It is in that moment that you realize the
lesion of the snake: The only good snake is a
dead snake. You feel you can't entirely rely on
the hunter, so you chose to become a snake
hunter yourself.
This leads you to reading all about copperhead
snakes. You find there is a local support group in
town that shares your interest in snakes.
Amazingly, you discover that people talk about
snakes on that newfangled computer you bought,
but never used. Perhaps, the most interesting
stories on the computer come from great
distance, and concern the the sexual conquests
of fellow snake hunters. Before your encounter
with the snake, you hardly knew that snakes
existed; now you are an semi-expert on the
subject. You attend snake conferences all across
the country. It seems all you think or talk about
these days is snakes. Whenever you meet
someone new, you feel it necessary to bring
snakes somewhere into the conversation, and
you let them know all the interesting stuff you
have learned about snakes. Moreover, to your
total amazement, you discover there is even a
snake repelling diet, and you totally give up going
to the local McDonalds in town, and join this new
diet. Guess what? This new diet has conferences
all over the country, so you are busier that ever
attending them. By now, your dog, Blue, is
wondering if you still love him, because you
spend so much time on the computer reading
what other people, including snake experts, have
to say, fixing the meals on the new diet, and
attending far-flung snake and diet conferences.
After a period of time, all this snake talk is
starting to get a little old, and you wish you had
the nerve to give up taking about it, and get on
with your life. You listen to the audio tape of
Caroline Myss, Why People Don't Heal, and you
wonder if she is talking about you.
I guess the only thing I don't know about snakes
is this: Do they really taste like chicken? |
