34 ½ Foot Rabid Anaconda

Recently, I spent a lovely afternoon at a swimming hole on Elkhorn Creek with two friends, my dog, and enough flotation equipment to outfit a small cruise ship.

I was the only human who actually got in the water.

This should have been my first clue.

 

 

 

One friend, let’s call him Buford*, never seems interested in swimming but still likes to hang out at the pool, creek, or whatever. 

Another friend, whom we’ll call Gus*, spent his entire childhood catching crawdads in a nasty little neighborhood creek in Lexington.  He admittedly got rashes as a child from said creek. 

Hmmm. Interesting.

We shimmied down the hillside to the creek bank and discovered exactly how uneven the rocks were when Buford and Gus set up their camp chairs. Not to worry, they did find a fine flat spot for the cooler of beer**. Wink wink.

My dog and I didn’t waste any time. We both eased into the creek. I, of course, had plenty of buoyancy with my PFD, swimming noodles, and Angelfish-shaped ring. I’m pretty open that I’m not a swimmer, so in order to really enjoy myself, it’s best if I have plenty of flotation devices to remain comfortably above sea level. 

I’m cool with my dorky self.

Well, I tried all day, but I could not coax Buford and Gus into the water. Buford just kept saying no, and Gus kept saying, “The town upstream is what is worrying me.” 

My reply, “Gus, come on. People have been swimming in creeks for hundreds of years.” 

Gus ended the conversation with, “Yes, but we’ve only been polluting them for about 50 or so.”

Well, I wasn’t about to let a little DDT and industrial waste ruin my good time with my swimming noodles. 

I spent the next few hours happily bouncing around on my swimming noodles. Occasionally, I reminded the city girls that next time we'd go to a nice chlorinated pool where they wouldn't have to get their sandals dirty.
 
Suddenly, I looked over towards Gus and noticed a stick that I hadn’t noticed before. 

Then I noticed that the stick had a rather thick body. And a triangular head. And something forked moving in and out of its mouth.

OH MY GOD IT'S A SNAKE!!!!!!!!

I immediately jumped out of the water and stood on the bank in a completely irrational state of fear. Gus was only slightly uncomfortable with the idea that a snake was about 3 inches from where he’d been dipping his toes in the creek. 

Buford barely noticed.

After a few minutes, the snake went below and didn’t surface for quite some time. Assuming he had gone on his merry little snake way, I waded back into noodle-bouncing territory.

And you guessed it. After about 5 minutes, that gigantic fork-tongued creature returned. I flew out of the creek, walking on water until I reached the safety of the bank. This time, I had gotten a better look at his wide body.

I knew I was done for the day, so I began to gather my belongings. Buford became slightly enamored with the beast and wanted to see it in its entirety. After several appearances looking out across the creek, the crazy maniac snake started to turn his gaze on us. He would watch us for 1 or 2 minutes, go underwater, and come back up closer to us, making full eye contact.

I very calmly collected my towel with complete rationality and started up the hill. That’s exactly when the 34½ foot rabid Anaconda went for my jugular.

And once again, Gus made a very good point in all of his wisdom.

“Ultimately, it was the city that prevented me from enjoying nature, and it was the nature that ran Jodi off.”

That's it.  Next time, I'm finding new friends to take to the swimming hole on Elkhorn Creek.

Preferably ones who will warn me about the 34½-foot rabid anacondas.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
**Note: We exercise zero tolerance policies for drinking & floating.