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A phobia is defined as an irrational fear of something. I have a tendency to define a phobia as something someone is afraid of and I am not. That is irrational. The most prevalent phobia public speaking and the list of phobias suddenly turns to things wild and in the outdoors. Snakes and spiders rank near the top of the list of things people fear and will even have nightmares about. I have never understood the fear of spiders. If they annoy me, I step on them. That pretty much solves the whole problem. They serve their purpose in nature, but if one is crawling up my leg, I feel it has outlived its usefulness and gets squashed.

I have always found snakes to be interesting and generally innocuous critters. They eat bugs and mice while wandering about minding their own business. Since marrying my wife, I have learned this is not acceptable snake behavior. To her, the only good snake is a dead snake. She has never been bitten or attacked by any type of snake but fears and hates them all equally. If she sees a snake and any child, adult, dog, or lawn mower is around, the snake must be dispatched by that bystander. Yes, even the lawnmower has been called into service to take care of a snake.

I came home from work one day to see a winding path mowed across the lawn. When I asked my wife about it, she replied, "There was a snake!" That is all I needed as an explanation. She saw a snake, jumped on the mower, and ran him down. The strange pattern in the grass would grow back.

Sunday, our grandson, Zane, was over for the day. He had been fishing along the shore while his Nanna and I were working in the yard. He came running back to the house and saw my wife first. He exclaimed, "There is a big water snake in a tree down by the dock!" If I had been the first person he met with his news, I would have told him to shake the tree so he falls back into the water before Nanna finds out. Unfortunately for the snake, Nanna had different plans. She told him, "Get your gun and go get him." When a person tells a nine year old to get his gun and go shoot something, you can bet the job is as good as done. By the end of the afternoon, he had dispatched four snakes and was feeling like snake hunting was as much fun a fishing. Zane was a hero and his Nanna was feeling like she trained the boy well.

Several years ago, we had a bull snake that lived in our barn. Most of the time, we would see him in the grain bin, fat and happy, after feeding on the mice that were stealing our corn. I made the boys promise to never tell their mother about the snake. To me, he was providing a service as a roaming mouse trap. If my wife ever found out about him, the boys would have been forbidden to step foot in the barn until the snake was gone. On the few trips my wife made to the barn, she never saw the snake, which is fortunate. He lived there for several years and grew to over six feet long. He was big enough to eat a medium sized opossum, which was fine with me. He could even eat rats. I do not like rats.

The fear of rats is not a phobia. They are nasty, mean, and dangerous creatures. Do not tell me I have a phobia. There is nothing wrong with snakes, spiders, or even public speaking. Rats are a whole different story.

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