The Intrepid Snake-Handler and His Angst-Ridden Father

About a year ago, I noticed, and blogged about, an interesting range of reactions to a single event that seemed to illustrate who each person in the family really was, in terms of basic instincts.  I saw a small snake in the bulkhead, at a time when the whole family was in the cellar with me, and my first reaction was to jump back.  Everyone else played out their natural roles as well:  Amy screamed.  Madeleine said, with some pleasure and excitement, "Oh!  A snake!"  Ian was very enthusiastic, ready to pick it up, and Daniel picked up a cardboard box and asked me if we could put the snake in the box and keep it as a pet.

Today, after church, Ian and a few other kids were playing outside, and there was a sudden burst of excitement:  they found a baby garter snake.  In keeping with the generation rift, all the children, ranging from 2 to 10, were happy with the discovery, but Ian quickly became the designated snake-picker-upper.  Everyone wanted to feed/handle/engage the snake, but the other parent - a Mom - and I agreed and asserted that only Ian should hold it.  I wasn't even happy with that resolution, but I decided to defer to her instinct, since I need to keep in check an apprehensive-bordering-on-frantic reaction to snakes and many other things that seems baked into my personality from my father's gene-pool.  Ian's reaction to this snake reminded me of the way he always reacts when he sees a spider, where he'll scoop it up without saying anything and continue whatever conversation he was having before the discovery, all the while guiding the creature as it walks in endless circles around his hand, like any other animal you would naturally jump to handle and then incorporate into your overall engagement of the moment.

Needless to say, Ian wanted to take the snake home as a pet.  Needless to say, the driver and nominal boss-of-them prevailed, and the snake remained in Massachusetts at the end of the encounter.  Ian had everyone say goodbye to Sammy the Snake, but Madeleine wasn't around when he began his departure, so Ian picked him up a second time, and held him so Madeleine could look him in his little green slithering vaguely triangular face and have a proper farewell.  Then Ian set Sammy back where he got him, and the creature slid off into disappearance mode within a matter of seconds.

Of course, the whole time, I was very worried:  what was Ian doing to prevent the snake from biting him?  What if the snake were to bite him?

After the fact, I discovered the other end of the panic-level-range surrounding this terrifying prospect.  Of course, Ian knows that New England garden snakes aren't poisonous.  But more to the point, it turned out that that horrific possibility had already come alive:  Ian said that the snake had bitten him a couple of times, and it didn't hurt at all:  it just felt like Velcro.

(August 17, 2014)