I wonder if the culprit was sitting near by watching the whole thing unfold.

Holy fucking shit. My feet aren't going to touch the floor for the rest of the day.

I went for a long hike around the Bodega headlands a couple weeks ago. The trail is sort of on the side of a cliff. Not a whole lot of room for error. As I was walking, a garter snake crossed the trail. I nearly fell off.

I know it was harmless, but it scared the shit out of me. On my way back to the car I had to walk through a lot of brush. If there weren't other people around, I would have run like hell. The fear and adrenaline were making my skin tingle.

How about you open your front door and there is a big ass black California King snake with white rings with blue edges sunning himself on the metal floor plate part of the door jamb? He was SO long, it felt like it took 2 minutes for it to slither away.

*swears off this thread*

Truman Capote wrote a wonderful longish short story called Handcarved Coffins in which one of the murders is achieved by injecting speed into rattlesnakes and placing them in the victim's car.

This later was proved to be an impossible feat for various reasons, but a good read, nevertheless.