Jane and I lead a life without incident, which is how we like it. Incident intercepts insight: it’s hard to rush and reason at once. We’ve had our rushing years and they were grand, but now peace is our preference. I’m hoping my loping prose reflects this bias.

A recent startling snake supplied incident, a suspenseful story with beginning, middle, and (I’m relieved to report) end. There it was atop the stone wall that divides driveway from swimming pool, gleaming in the sun. Some people admire snakes with their pretty patterns and curvaceous coils.  Not me, I’m ophidiophobic. Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) is a subcategory of herpetophobia (fear of reptiles). Who knew.

I gasped, tugging puppy Henry indoors, calling for Jane. Jane likes snakes – and frogs – and other creeping creatures. She touches them without compunction if she can safely. Liking Jane (a lot), I overlook this oddity in her character.

Jane came to inspect our heliophilic interloper. If the snake were composing this account, it might label me the interloper, violating its more ancient right, but so far there’s no SAI (Snake Artificial Intelligence) to translate Snake to English, or if there is, it’s not for me.

Sensing an audience, our snake slithered unhurriedly, almost disdainfully, into the wall, while Jane betook herself to her computer to identify its type.

Not good news. A juvenile timber rattlesnake, about two feet long, rare for the northeast but not unheard of. Juveniles are more dangerous because speedier and jumpier. Potentially fatal – to pets, grandchildren, inattentive oldsters. Panic’s an unseemly response so let’s say we were highly concerned.

When in doubt, Google. Amazon could deliver glue traps tomorrow. Unsuspecting snakes stick to this adhesive surface, writhe and die. I’m told there are laws protecting this species but to hell with that when it’s us versus them. For good measure I stopped by our hardware store for a jug of Snake Stopper, the stink of which convinces snakes to relocate, but not to New Mexico, alas, where they belong. Our inflamed imaginations clamored for annihilation, not a move next door.

I will not bore you with the discussions, deliberations, dread imaginings that flustered the next forty-eight drizzly hours, during which our foe opted to stay indoors. Finally it was sunny again and trusty Celestino, who helps us care for our acres, dispatched Junior in the good old-fashioned way – with a stick. He wondered if we cared to view the remains. Not I, thanks, I shrank into my work-couch.

The snake is gone but not the qualms it wakened. To wit:

·      Do I believe in the sanctity of life or only when convenient?

·      Is a law safeguarding snakes overdoing it?

·      What about snakes gives me the heebie-jeebies? (Calling Doctor Freud!)

·      Why am I such a wuss?

In hindsight, my snake alarm strikes me as excessive, even ludicrous. How threatened was I really? The human brain, though, resists reasonable restraint. Once spooked, terror stampedes. “How much pain they have cost us,” mused Thomas Jefferson, “the evils which have never happened.” Roger that. But how can I prevent pretty gleaming Junior from infiltrating my imagination? Even now, he threatens (somehow, I’ve gendered him). He and his chums, in the ominous dark, plot their revenge.

Our snake incident makes for a jovial story – and sober sermon. We humans, for all our swagger, are insecure in our overlordship of earth. A friend chides us for snake-murder (ophidiocide, I guess). We should have lured the snake into a container and released it in a far forest. That would have been humane – but I’m only human.