Originally published in The Plain Talker, September 2007
In early August, some friends told me that their son's sixth birthday was coming up soon, and that he wanted to have a "snake party;" would I be willing to bring some snakes?
The perception that my house is some sort of reptile emporium or snake zoo is a common one; I guess people think that, because I'm interested in snakes, that I surround myself with them. (Or maybe they just think that I'm really messy, and that the snakes are there only to eat the mice and rats.) But that's not true; I only have one snake, and it was a wedding present. I actually prefer snakes in the great outdoors; it's always more thrilling to see one when out hiking or canoeing that it is to see one in a cage.
Still, I was happy to hear about the snake party, and I agreed to do my best to bring some snakes. For one thing, I was thrilled that a six-year-old was already well on the way to being a snake-lover; there never are enough of us in the world, and it's always good to start them out young. Plus, it would give me a real reason to spend a lot of time hiking through the woods and swamps, and I'm always looking for legitimate reasons to do things that would otherwise be considered a waste of time by those who don't know any better.
You might remember the August day my friends put me in charge of rounding up some snakes; as of this moment, it was the last day that the high temperature did not reach at least 100 degrees. Now, 100 degrees is hot. 100 degrees when you're tromping through fields and forests and swamps is even hotter; add in the oh so pleasant side effects like chiggers biting your legs, mosquitoes buzzing around your head, spider webs enveloping your face and ticks migrating towards places you don't want them to be, and you have the makings of one miserable day. Or, in this case, many miserable days in a row.
The snakes don't like this weather any better, so they do a masterful job of hiding. This just means that snake hunters need to spend even more hours of more days looking, and experiencing all of those wonderful things mentioned above. Since I started looking for snakes for this party, the only snakes I've found have been venomous; I've seen one Copperhead, two rattlesnakes, and so many Water Moccasins that I've lost count. And as cool as those snakes are, taking them to a birthday party full of six-year-olds just seems like a monumentally bad idea. (This is coming from someone who though that building his own kite-ski sounded like a good idea.)
And so, I usually just sigh, and leave the venomous snakes alone, and keep looking for more kid-friendly snakes. And one day, as I hiked over some baked earth in a field, and I turned over a piece of wood to reveal even more baked earth, I had something of a flashback. Something about looking for snakes in the blistering heat, something about the cracked earth, reminded me of something else, of some other time. At first I thought I was being reminded of the trip to Arizona I took a few years back, but that wasn't it; I only spent a small part of one afternoon wandering in the desert looking for snakes, and it had looked nothing like this. (Though I have been finding cacti in places I never expected to find them; I never know there were so many in central Alabama.)
Then I remembered. We used to take yearly trips to visit relatives in Oklahoma, and on one of those trips I was bound and determined that I was going to catch a Horned Lizard, more commonly called a Horny Toad. They are cool little dinosaur-looking lizards, with squatty toad-like bodies, and they're not found anywhere around here. So if I was going to catch one, it would be in Oklahoma. And so that week I spent as much time as possible hiking in the midwestern heat on treeless prairies, looking for an elusive creature.
In the end, I caught a Horny Toad. That means that so far, the biggest difference between a baked Oklahoma prairie and Alabama 2007 is that I had more luck on the prairie. Which is a sad thing to think about, and just another reason that I hope, before this party, that my luck turns around. If not for me, then for the birthday boy; I don't think a party spent looking at pictures of snakes was what he had in mind.
Note: After this was written, and one day before the party, I finally broke the bad-luck streak, and caught a nice-sized Gray Rat Snake. The party was a huge success; even the snake seemed to enjoy it.