The great rattlesnake adventure

If there is one thing I pride myself on it is the ability to go from zero to OH SHIT RUN in the amount of time it takes a unicorn to charm a 6 year old girl (.3145 seconds).  If there is anything I don’t pride myself on it is my lack of Titan killing ability and my constantly failing common sense.

These skills have helped me countless times in the past, but the crowning jewel is when I was in third grade when I thought there was a rattlesnake in my room.

It was about 2 in the morning when I awoke, quite suddenly, to a loud buzzing rattle coming from the closet where my sisters and I kept our collection of adorable stuffed animals.  I laid in bed, on the bottom bunk, puzzling and puzzling.  "What is this buzz?  Why does it stop and start?  Why wont it shut the fuck up so I can go to sleep and be functional for my super important third grade activities?  How can I-

"RATTLESNAKE RATTLESNAKE PANIC RATTLESNAKE RATTLESNAKE RATTLESNAKE
RATTLESNAKE RATTLESNAKE RATTLESNAKE RATTLESNAKE
RATTLESNAKE RATTLESNAKEPANIC RATTLESNAKE!"

That was about how my thought process went. 

So powerful was my fear that I levitated myself up through the air into my twin sister’s bed.  She was surprised by this, since earlier we had had an epic twin battle that resulted in a furious onslaught of fists and insults that, as far as I know, is still in the house today bothering the new tenants and breaking dishes.  Nothing creates poltergeists like the combined rage of a pair of 6-year-olds.  I could feel her seriously considering launching me from the bed like a lawn dart (she was like 8 inches taller than me).  That was when I dropped the bomb.

“There’s a rattlesnake.  Here.  In our room.”

She was silent, listening intently for the horrible buzz that was signaling our impending doom by painful snake bite poisoning.  God only knew what would cure an injury like that.  Dinosaur tears and amputation probably.

Thankfully, Erin’s fight or flight instinct was much sharper than mine.  With a graceful gazelle-like leap she catapulted across the room and sprinted out of our door towards our parents room.  I, certain that our house was crawling with rattlesnakes, began to frantically try to open the child lock on our window.  I planned to escape, leaving my youngest sister asleep as a distraction for the rattlesnake, so that I could escape with my life and limbs and live out my life in the woods behind our yard.  Because snake don’t live in the woods, of course, they live in toy closets.

Thankfully, our mother walked in and, in a remarkably godlike act, made light.  (With a light switch located right above my pillow).  There, in the comforting fluorescent glow of a non-eco friendly light bulb, was a body poster my youngest sister had made at school rattling every time the fan oscillated past it.