Just Like Chicken

I’ve seen several previews lately for Johnny Depp’s new animated movie, Rango. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, Depp voices a lizard who becomes sheriff of an animal town to eradicate a troublesome rattlesnake. I saw a different preview the other day, and it showed the snake being launched into the air and writhing around. Given my love of Johnny, it’s a shame I won’t be able to go see the movie.

You see . . . I really, really, really hate snakes. Like, really. I could fill the page with the word “really” and it really wouldn’t be enough to express to you how afraid I am of snakes. This is no ordinary “eek! A snake! Somebody get it while I stand on a chair!” type of fear. It is more an unbearable, paralyzing, soul-crushing state of terror.

I have nightmares about snakes. I have never been in a reptile house at a zoo in my entire life – every time I have been presented with the option, I have dug my heels in and threatened a conniption fit of the most epic proportion humanly imaginable. I can’t look at pictures of snakes. When I was a kid I got these wildlife magazines, and if there were snakes I had to put the magazine inside of a book or a bag or something and give it to my mom to take the snake parts out. I can’t watch snakes on TV. I can’t even watch cartoons of snakes, as evidenced by my refusal to watch even previews of Rango. When it comes to films like True Grit or Harry Potter where I know snakes will be just a minor part of a movie I otherwise want to see, I prepare by either knowing when to leave the theater for a well-timed “bathroom break,” or I bring a hoodie in which to hide my scaredy-cat face. Being presented with a snake will cause me to hyperventilate, sweat, get nauseous, throw up, and/or weep, even if it is only one cleverly drawn as a google-eyed cartoon safe behind the glass of my TV. Magnify that by about a basquillion per cent if faced with one in the real, physical world.

I hesitate to use this example, as I’m pretty certain it’s going to cement my status as batshit crazy. But it’s probably the only viable option to use to express the gravity of the situation. Plus, looking back, I’m sure I looked hilarious. Saturday morning, unbeknownst to me, the neighbors below me decided to move out with the most ridiculously huge moving truck ever around 9 AM. I was sleeping peacefully, as I see no good reason to be awake at 9 AM on a Saturday. The truck apparently backed up to their garage (located directly underneath my bedroom), and did some sort of truck maneuver that I neither understand nor care about that released some large amount of pressure or something, resulting in an outrageously obnoxious hissing-air-type sound. Even in my deep, hardcore sleep, my brain managed to equate this sound with a snake (and apparently one proportionally large enough to be capable of emitting such a loud hiss), and I sat straight up in bed screaming in terror. I so completely lost my shit, it took me a good hour to calm down, even after it happened again and I heard the people and truck doors and sounds of moving outside and realized what was going on.

Seriously, I hope to God nobody heard me, because there is no way to rationalize it as any type of normal human behavior.

Snakes may supposedly taste just like chicken (to which I say, just eat some damn chicken if you want the taste of chicken), but I myself actually am a huge, pathetic, featherless chicken.

Sarcasmo

Currently Excited About:  THE OSCARS!  I don't even care if you judge.  There has already been some excellent fuckery parading down the red carpet.  Apparently, when you slide on a designer gown, you become mirror-proof.