He didn't mean any harm. It was pretty funny, though. I love it when people try lecture me about reptiles.

A funny one happened the other day at the medic's office. I am used to the Army's "hurry-up-and-wait" methods, so I brought a copy of Tennant's Texas Snakes to pass the time. A Sergeant looked at me and said, "why are you reading about snakes?"

I told him that I'm fairly new to TX and want to educate myself.

"All's you gotta worry about is those damn rattlesnakes," he told me.

Another soldier chipped in, "and Cottonmouths, them's everywhere in TX!"

"oh yeah," the SGT said. "You can't go fishing without those jumping in your boat. They're mean sunsas."

"They float in huge balls across the water waiting to attack something," said the other soldier.

"Why would they do that," I asked? "Cause they're mean sunsas," said the SGT quite matter-of-factly.

I mentioned that harmless male water snakes are known to congregate in large numbers around females in a type of "mating ball," but they wouldn't hear of it. The only snakes that live in and around water are deadly Cottonmouths and Copperheads.

Luckily, my name was called shortly after that and I left them to their ignorance.
-----
Diego

SWCHR

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