Standing Too Close To A Snake

As I was walking down my street recently fiddling with my MP3 player, I tripped over a 5 ft snake. Luckily it happened to be a dead, man-eating snake. Had it been alive when I tripped, it could have ripped off an arm. Or injected deadly DNA altering poison into me. Or even hissed at me. All while Neal Diamond was singing my favorite song.

A friend came driving up, so I placed my foot on the curb, lifted my chin, and pointed to the dead snake. I told how I had wrestled it for hours. How it had been determined to kill me, but I had sprayed it with my pepper spray and beat it to death with my dog-beating, walking stick.

He was very impressed and then drove away. In his place stood the fluffy stray dog that has been my walking buddy for years. He was growling this time and that startled me. I considered my dog-beating stick, but this guy had been my friend for countless walks through the neighborhood. I remembered the days of him trotting at my side, his tongue lolling happily out his mouth, his tail wagging in the morning breeze. Once he even growled at a bad dog for me and ran the bad dog off.

As I was standing there with my feelings hurt, the snake twitched to life and snapped its head toward my ankle. I jumped away and bolted down the street. Within seconds the dog ran up to me, trotting at my side, his tongue lolling, and his tail wagging. Guilty at my lapse in judgement, I patted his head and promised him something delicious upon reaching my home.

I also have a human friend I have known for years. She has been a good friend and is a good person. Naturally... I would not hang around with creeps. Proving her friendship countless times through the years, she will share an appetizer of five cheese sticks over lunch, and doesn’t resort to physical violence when I grab the fifth one.

She always remembers her camera when visiting my home so she can take pictures when the SWAT team inevitably shows up, and I can look at them later and use them as evidence. And when trying on swimwear, she always tells me how good I look in my new swimsuit, even though I won’t let her in the dressing room. I just tell her how good I look, and she forms her opinion on that.

Last week while filling out a mortgage loan at the Exxon Station to finance filling my tank, I see my friend filling her tank outside. Two young employees were gossiping in the back of the store, a young man, who had the innocent face of a cherub, his seven chin hairs perfectly cropped and groomed, and the other a young girl.

He pointed at my friend and began to tell the young girl some little known facts about my friend. I stood frozen in my spot where the other clerk was shaking the last few coins out of my purse, flabbergasted at the things this young man was saying about my friend. I had never known that she had once been an acrobat in Cirque du Soleil. I had never known that she had once been arrested for being an unlicensed dancer. I certainly had never known she was friends with gas station employees!

Before finishing removing my jewelry to pay for the rest of my tank, my friend paid for her gas at the pump and drove away. I stumbled back to my own car, my head spinning with the horrible things I had just heard. Sitting stunned behind my steering wheel, I could see the young man through the glass, the image of a clean-cut, and harmless youth. Stroking his seven slick chin hairs, he flared out his shoulders as the young lady mooned over his muscles and his secret knowledge of their customers.

Then I gave myself a mental slap, and felt ashamed at my thoughts. My friend was my friend that had trotted at my side for years. She had not changed who she was or how she looked at all. It was my stupidity that had let me view her as scary. Because I had not remembered how differently friends can appear when one is standing too close to a snake.