*shudder*

When I was younger I spent a lot of time at my cousin’s house. She lived out in the country on five or six acres and they had a couple storage sheds out behind their house. These were great for playing hide-n-seek, right up until the black rat snakes decided they were also great places to spend the night. We stopped playing in them real quick. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing as there were a lot of other places to play, like the swingset/slide combo thing.

~~~

Yesterday my alarm went off at six like always, and like always I turned it off to wait for the six thirty alarm, which is when I actually get up. Apparently I fell asleep, because I had this extraordinarily vivid dream.

Several people from here at college were at my cousin’s house with me, my brother and my cousin. We were going to swim in her swimming pool. I ran ahead of the group and jumped in the pool first, and then I got out and for some reason went down the hill to where the sheds were and opened the door to one of them. There were several small black snakes, so I slammed the door. I heard someone yell up the hill, turned and saw the biggest black snake I have ever seen coming down the hill, apparently having been frightened by the group up by the pool. It was headed for the shed I was standing by, and I didn’t have time to get out of the way. When it got about a foot away from me it stopped and reared up the way cobras do, but it didn’t have a hood. Anyways, its head was directly in front of my face and I started to run away, but then I remember that if a snake looks like it’s going to strike you shouldn’t run, but try to take its attention off of you. I somehow knew it wasn’t a poisonous snake, so I wasn’t scared for my life; but I knew a snake that huge (Like, 15 feet long huge) would have enormous fangs and would tear my face up pretty bad. So I slowly brought my arm up in between my face and the snake’s. It slowly came forward and put its mouth around my hand/wrist but didn’t bite down hard; it just squeezed enough to make puncture marks. It then let go, but it was still reared up and close to my face. I decided that was enough proof that it didn’t actually want to hurt me so I slowly started to turn and move away.

Bad idea… As soon as I turned my back it struck out and bit the back of my left thigh and pulled its head back so it tore its fangs out. My alarm went off right about then and I jumped out of bed with my heart going a million miles a minute and of course, terrified as all get out.

~~~

When I laid back down my hand was resting by my neck and I literally could not distinguish a single heartbeat my pulse was so fast.

~~~

Now, just some clarification:

1.     I have never been afraid of snakes in my entire life.

2.     I haven’t watched a scary movie about snakes in forever.

3.     I haven’t been watching anything even remotely frightening lately.

4.     No, I don’t think black rat snakes can actually get 15 feet long.

5.     As far as I can tell, neither my hand nor my hip was hurting.

6.     And no, I will not tell who all was in my dream. :P