Whoopi Goldberg just told a wonderful story about feeling like a risk-taker by nature, until she knows what the risks are. She was walking in the woods in Africa, thinking of it as a safe risk ("Hey, I'm from New York!"), when her guide told her about a skinny snake that drops from trees and bites you in the ear to deliver the poison. "What!" she said, "What the hell are we doing walking out here, for!"
I've got my own tale as well. I thought well enough of snakes when living in the Northeast, as mostly my encounters were with the small, 5" garden variety. Then, moving to Tennessee, my encounters started stretching to 2-foot long, 2"-diameter black and blackish red snakes appearing curled up on window sills of abandoned property, in the middle of roads, or stretched across our garden paths. "They don't bother me. I don't bother them," I thought, a carry-over from my New York City days.
We recently discovered two living in our meadow when one got caught in the blades of the lawn mower tractor. The other one soon emerged and ended with a similar fate. Did I feel guilty? No--even though it's actually against the law to keep snakes as pets or deliberately kill them--not until I told the story at a recent graduation party, where all the locals sided with the snakes and their virtues. I definitely lost points on getting in with the locals that day.
Maybe they do eat mosquitos and rid your property of vermin, but I still feel less the risk-taker--especially when my two cats drag them into the house for play. So, I don't deliberately aim a vacuum cleaner at them, but I have a creative move with my barbecue tools and husband's spare wood. My aim is improving each time I get to fling them across into the neighbor's garden.
