The Family That Snake Hunts Together, Stays Together.

I like to think that I have lived a pretty full life. I have been to school, loved and been loved by a horse, traveled, rodeoed, and run barrels all over the country, gotten married and given birth to three healthy children. But last night, I found myself doing something I had never done before. I went snake hunting. With my family. I'm not sure, but I think this qualifies as an entry for the Redneck Wikipedia.
Allow me to share some background information. Those of you who know me are aware that I do NOT do snakes. I'm not saying, "I don't like snakes." I'm saying, "I will cause you bodily harm without a second thought in order to get away from a snake." I'm not "afraid" of snakes. I have a deep-seated, molecular level, hard wired, can't help it, Garden-of-Eden FEAR of snakes. I don't think they're slimy. I don't think they want to hurt me. I just don't want to see them. Ever. I don't want to look at one, I don't want to touch one, and I sure as hell don't want to hold one. Every nightmare I've ever had was about snakes. Okay, almost every one. I've had at least a few drowning or falling ones. But mostly, I'm walking along and suddenly the whole ground is covered with snakes. Somebody out there analyze that crap and tell me what it means.
When I was in veterinary school, I was forced to complete a rotation that put me in a room with snakes every day. It NEVER got any easier for me. My heart raced and I felt like I couldn't catch my breath the entire time. When the instructor explained that each of us would take turns caring for the animals on this rotation, I flatly told him that I was going to fail. Fortunately, one of my classmates took pity on me and made sure I got to graduate. My personal goal for the rotation was to touch one of the snakes. It never happened. One of my teachers said I was an animal racist because I told him that I planned to refuse treatment for snakes in my practice. To which I say, can you put that on a t-shirt for me? Call me whatever you want. I'm still scared of snakes, and I don't see me getting over it any time soon.
So, armed with this knowledge, you might ask yourself, why in the hell was I out purposely looking for something I'm so freaking afraid of? I was asking myself the same question. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. We got done riding last night about dusk, and as I was heading back to the barn, I saw two snakes crossing the lake and leaving a wake that you wouldn't believe. My babysitter's fiance has been picking them off one at a time while fishing here lately, but there are obviously some left.
When I told my husband what I had seen, one of my five year olds practically yelled, "Oooooh, Daddy, can we go snake hunting?" Yes, my little redneck children. Why not? So he loaded a German Shepherd, snake-fearing wife, three kids, and a .22 into the Ranger and off we went, complete with Corgi escort times two. We rode around the lake at a snail's pace, with my husband saying, "I need a spotlight" about 1200 times. Guess we all know what he's getting for Christmas. If that's not a redneck gift, I don't know what is. I'm sure it was a terrible oversight on Jeff Foxworthy's part when he left it out of the "Redneck Twelve Days of Christmas" song.
In my mind I was thinking, there's no way in the world we're gonna see a snake with this circus. I have to say that I was secretly hoping we didn't. And the crazy thing is, we DID! We saw two and killed one, with my three kids screaming, "SHOOT IT, DADDY! SHOOT IT!" It was awesome. For a second I thought we were in an episode of "Swamp People."
Yep, it was all pretty surreal. Found myself doing something I NEVER thought I would do. Definitely not something I ever did with my parents. I can officially mark "snake hunting" off my Bucket List. I'm fairly certain it wasn't even on there. Oh, wait, I don't even have one of those. I'll have to make that a project for another day. I guess the family that snake hunts together stays together!