A Reptile Dysfunction

*a mostly-true story from my personal archives*

Among the many attractions to hikers, bikers and joggers on Green Mountain, is nature. Nature takes many awesome forms on this large, expansive "foothill" that spreads for a fur piece across western Lakewood and almost into the fringes of Golden. It is honeycombed with hiking and biking trails.

Granted, most, if not all, of the nature of Green Mountain has lived there far longer than the hiking-biking-jogging sect, minus the fossils on display on nearby Dinosaur Ridge, but I digress. And much of it seeks distance from the human interlopers. But sometimes, the two have occasion to meet, and it can prove an inhospitable meeting with handshakes and cordiality all around lacking. Once in a very great while, such inhospitality can require one of the two to seek more hospitable services for the inhospitality encountered, so to speak.

Such was almost the case today.

I took my usual early exercise sojourn up the usual Green Mountain route (Florida trailhead to the Heyden cutoff, up the hill to the main Green Mountain trail, down a ways and back: about a 6 mile round trip) on Thursday, July 26. In the several years that I have lived in this vicinity, and all my hiking on the hill, I have had but two encounters with snakes, both fleeting: a pair of small bullsnakes, both of whom were more interested in getting out of my way, than I was of caring they were there. Snakes don't bother me the way self-righteous progressives do, but I digress again.

Today, I'd done my usual "up the hill", sounding near the top like an obscene phonecall, and was returning from just past the summit. On the main trail, about the low point between two inclines, I was lost in thought, pondering several options for my various and pending email scammers, gently thumping the ground with my companion walking stick in my right hand. I had my headphones on, listening to some mellow late 60s rock, and was casting a casual glance around my general surroundings, when a movement about three feet from where I was about to step caught my attention, if not checking my forward momentum.

It was a moving green stick where I didn't recall a stick when I passed here before, and a stick that seemed to have an elasticity that was truly amazing. As I had this belated notion to check my forward progress, I recalled the line from an old Cary Grant movie, "that looks like a snake!".

Due to my failure to check forward momentum, the stick that looked like a snake removed all doubt: it went from a slow, undulating passage across the path, into a more compact, more upright pose. And it had the nicest little noisemaker attached to its tail, making a most definitive *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*.

And it was apparently in no mood to give ground, let alone tolerate my immediate proximity.

Now, I'll be frank, though that's not really my name: I am 50, and not possessed of the limber movements of even 10 years ago. I am a 6' 2", 240 lb. lumbering lunk-foot. But the sudden presence of a highly-elascitized moving stick with attached noisemaker, shifting from lunk-slinking to compressed pissed -- within inches of my right foot -- caused me a strange combination of spinchter tightening and a rearward one-footed horizontal/vertical leap that caused the "stick" to miss when it lashed out in my direction.

I am not quite sure how the spinchter held, but it's proof I wasn't looking for that I'm not ready for Depends just yet.

The coiled, noise-making stick -- flicking black tongue and all -- was plainly riled. My instinctive rearward shift of momentum (which I felt then, and later...ow), had given me a 3-foot buffer between me and 'it': a 2' long prairie rattlesnake, with an 8 button rattle that was going like a tamborine at a prayer revival. A quick piece of math suggested to me that with three feet of separation, I was safely beyond it's strike radius of about 2/3 or so of it's length.

And I still had the trump card: my 40" long, inch-thick walking stick.

With the two of us at something of a stand-off, and no other hikers, bikers or joggers in the immediate vicinity, I decided to engage the local denizen in something of An Interview With A Reptile*:

Me: Well now, hat-band-in-the-making, how's things with you?

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Me: Really? Is that the current buzz on the hill, or are you just rumor-mongering?

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Me: Y'know, it's a good thing you missed me...I mighta lost my spinchter control, and you'd be all wet...

It: *bzzzzz*

With my failure to advance or retreat any closer/further, the snake maintained it's defensive stance, but slowly the tail decided to take a rest:

Me: Bet that just works your ass off, eh?

It: *no reaction*

Me: Oh, a tough crowd, eh? Well, how about this one: did you hear about the far-sighted snake that went and got contacts, then went home and killed itself?

It: *flicked tongue*

Me: It discovered it'd been mating with a garden hose the past three years...

It: *snake 'rolled eyes' and hit over the head look*

It was then that another jogger came over the rise, about 20 yards away, between me and the no-sense-of-humor snake. I decided to alert her a bit faster than I had been to the presence in the trail:

Me *gesturing with my walking stick*....careful, Ma'am...rattlesnake..

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* (I don't think it liked my walking stick being shoved in it's snout)

Her: *feet now doing a happy dance*....OMG...a SNAKE!

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Her: *feet still doing a rapid happy dance* OMG, OMG OMG...

Me: Give me a moment, Ma'am...I'll try to clear it out of the trail..

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Her: see refrain

I began moving around to the snake's right, keeping the walking stick tip directly in front of the snake, which moved as I did. About midway around it, it struck out at the stick tip:

Her: OMG! Are you alright?

Me: Fine, Ma'am...it bit the stick...

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

My effort at snake-herding merely accomplished me getting around to the same side of the trail she was on, while my stick took a couple additional hits from the very unimpressed reptile; the snake remained adamantly in the trail, buzzing like a cheap alarm clock.

Her: What am I going to do?

Me and It: *momentarily shared a "Huh?" look*

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Me: Okay...I'll keep it's attention, while you move around it wide on it's right...

Her: *still doing a lesser version of the happy feet dance*...ohhhh, I hate snakes...

Me: I'd of never guessed that, Ma'am...

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

With my stick playing nyah nyah with *the reptile dysfunction* on the snake's snout, she was able to move safely around and past the aggrieved obstruction, shouting a "thank you!" as she resumed her run. With no one else in immediate proximity, I decided my departure might convince the snake to move along as well.

Me: Been nice chattin' with you. You don't mind if I post this interview, do you?

It: *bzzzzz*

Me: You won't mind if I include the part about you as "the reptile dysfunction", will you?

It: *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

I take that to be a "yes....he minds".

I was sure my walking stick would recover in time from being thrice-hit by a rattlesnake that was not amused that I had referred to it as "a reptile dysfunction". Maybe it's seen those commercials on Viagra, which would explain the reaction.

As I moved on, I last saw the snake, still compressed in defensive posture, but no longer rattling; however, I am convinced that I saw it give me "the finger" with it's rattle. Which might have been for the stick in the face, "the reptile dysfunction", or the really bad garden hose joke, I'm not sure which.

* okay, so I embellished the interview portion a tad...the snake took more of a 5th Amendment 'tude with me...