STAGE 1: Nope.
STAGE 2: Reluctant acceptance.
STAGE 3: Hey, it’s not so bad.
STAGE 4: Friendsies.
My Salvadoran parents used to tell me stories about snakes. Where I live, common household pests may include mice, termites, or ants. In El Salvador, you can also count on finding an unwelcome and potentially poisonous snake coiled up somewhere from time to time. I would imagine waking up to a snake wound around the rafters above me in the middle of the night and cringe.
I may not be as reluctant about snakes as I am about rodents, but the aversion is definitely there. It may stem from the first time I ever encountered a snake on a hiking trail somewhere in a Southern California Mountain, a moment my dad will never, ever let me forget. Four year-old, pint-sized me encountered a pint-sized snake and let out a not-so-pint-sized shriek.
Last Friday, I became friends with Cesar, an albino California kingsnake with little red eyes, who’s, frankly, always grossed me out ever since I watched that one episode of “How Clean is Your House?” where one of the kindly maids explains to the unkempt mom that her family’s pet snake is spreading salmonella everywhere. (Sorry to my good friend Jesse, who owns Cesar.) However, it was unjust of me to judge Cesar because I’ve known about handwashing for years, which most health experts say effectively kills germs.
It turns out that Cesar is really sweet and, although Jesse stated otherwise, didn’t bite me at all. He was sinewy and scaly yet smooth. I tried not to look at his face too closely because his little forked tongue would stick out every few seconds, and that’s really all it took to make it bearable. Would I hold him again? Yes. As long as I can wash my hands very soon after.
Read Part I of The Eleanor Project here.
