Garden Snakes

Garden Snakes

not just your ordinary shoelace

Rattle snakes, cobras, and vipers: It’s easy to be afraid of these deadly crawlers, but I would take any of those snakes any day over the common garden snake. This fear of mine is not the fear of death, but the result of a horrible, traumatic event in my past.

One fall evening when I was about 10 years old, I was taking a walk with my family. I remember that we were talking about shoes, and how I obviously needed a new pair. Walking by, something caught my eye. It was a light brownish color of an old worn shoelace-- one that seemed like it belonged exactly where it was, not in a shoe. “What a coincidence!” I thought. I picked it up to show my parents. On any other day I would have left it alone, but since we were talking about shoes, it was just too fitting to leave it be.

I held the “shoelace” for a solid five seconds before I felt it move. Startled, it took me but an instant to see the eyes. Every single person in the neighborhood probably thought I had been stabbed by the sound of my shriek after that. Dropping the spider, I did what any rational 10 year old would do: I cried. I straight up bawled my eyes out because I was so traumatized by what just happened.

Since that day, I have learned my lesson, and NEVER picked up anything off the sidewalk again, especially anything long and slimy.