Today my parents went on a hike and....almost got bitten by a rattlesnake. I was in the front of the pack leading my parents, but apparently wasn't doing that good of a job because it wasn't until my dad started making weird noises behind me that I realized I had just stepped over where a small rattlesnake had been resting its head....just its head section peeked into the trail, and I apparently just didn't look where I was walking. Phew; close call. Everywhere in California there are signs before entering a hiking trail to beware of rattlesnakes, but rarely do I ever see one, much less have one lying in the path. They can be a serious problem though; seriously deadly. My old boss at my summer camp counselor job would tell a story every year of having a camper get bit by a baby rattlesnake, and the camper had to be rushed to a hospital and treated with antivenom because baby rattlesnakes apparently don't know how to control their venom and use up more than they need to, which goes into the human bloodstream... not exactly something I ever want to deal with, either with one of my campers or myself. Just the idea of being bit by a snake is daunting, the bite itself.
I do feel like rattlesnakes get a bad rap due to how they're portrayed in so many movies, media, and stories....they're always the villain, they always make an ominous hissing sound, they slither slowly and menacingly. The only exception I can think of is maybe Viper, voiced by Lucy Liu, from the Kung Fu Panda movies, or maybe kind of a villain-turned-hero in "Bad Guys" the movie, which is a movie about the most common tropes of bad guys played in movies like snakes and big bad wolves? I do feel like real snakes get a bad rap; they're just trying to eke out a living like any other living creatures on this earth, except when they get threatened they do fight back occasionally, unlike squirrels or mice, and is it really their fault that ignorant human beings like me are always stepping on them? If they didn't have scaly bodies, forked tongues, and not look cute like puppies or birds they'd become lucky symbols or spirit animals or something. Instead they've become the biggest threats when going out hiking in California's vast wilderness and national parks system, except for maybe like (cocaine) bears and sharks. MJ does not think like me, she totally goes with the mainstream of animals she doesn't like, like cockroaches, mice, snakes, all the disgusting animals; she told me to kill an innocent bug in our house the other day just for the crime of breaking and entering into our humble abode; for the sake of life (and hoping to get good baby karma or just karma in general) I released the bug back into the wild, where it probably would die within the next couple days anyway but not by my hand. And happy story: my parents and I got by the rattlesnake safely without incident, although I wonder what's the correct protocol to alert other trail users about a snake on the path, to avoid them getting bitten as well? Leave a big sign? Try to scare the rattlesnake away? I've seen people try to use a big stick to lift the snake's entire body and thrust it away off the path, but that seems like a lot of risk to me personally to not a lot of benefit of potentially saving a random stranger I'll never meet.
I just found out Lucy Liu is 54 years old! Well geez! She is closer to my mom's age than she is to my age, but she has aged so gracefully. Good news MJ! What is her antiaging secret?
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