SNAKES

I don't like snakes.  Not even the so-called "good" ones that, I'm told, eat garden pests.  I don't like snakes. . .

This morning while mowing the lawn, one wiggled beside my lawn mower.  In total panic, I ran over it with the lawn mower.  Just how long does it take a snake to die?

I finished mowing the back yard, dug a grave for the slithery thing.  Took my shovel out of the shed, began to scoop up the culprit.  It hadn't moved during the time I mowed the lawn, but as soon as my shovel touched it, it began wiggling.  So I left it for several hours to allow it to totally die.

Again, I picked up my shovel and the creepy thing rolled over and over.  So I stabbed it unmercifully with my shovel, trying to cut it in half.  It's head reared up with its mouth wide open, sending ice through my veins.  In the act of trying to cut it with my shovel, the shovel went into the ground.  "Okay", I said to it.  "You want to be buried here?"  I can arrange that.  With the shovel, I pushed it into the small hole the shovel had made, and then used the shovel to beat down the dirt over the snake.

Okay, even I have to laugh at this. . . I pounded that dirt really hard and then started to walk away.  The last 2 or 3 inches of the tail of this beast was still above ground and "waving" at me. . .