Stranger Than Most

by SUSAN LAUTZ

 

I’m always telling people not to kill snakes. “They’re on our side against the rodents,” I argue. “Kill them and you’ll be overrun with rats and mice.” My exasperated friends answer that if I love the snake so much I can jolly well come over and take it home with me. I would, but the thing would be gone before I could back out of my driveway. (All the more reason to just leave it alone and let it get back to the business of killing rodents!) Fear of snakes is the most common human phobia, found in all continents and cultures. The paleoanthropologists say that this is a holdover from our days living in the trees when snakes were a major predator.