There are some who start their retirement long before they stop working. -Robert Half

Monday, May 18, 2009

Slytherin.

I have come to the conclusion that if I lived in Harry Potter world, I would unfortunately be in Slytherin. Even though every online Harry Potter quiz I've taken says I'm supposed to be in Gryffindor (maybe it tells everyone that because that is the house everyone wants to be in), the evidence points in favor of Slytherin for these two reasons:

First reason: I've been driving for 8 years now which, I think, has given me ample time to see a plethora of road kill. However, in all this time, I have never seen a dead snake on the road. Sure, I've seen squirrels, deer, bunnies, raccoons, birds, foxes, and armadillos, but never a snake. On a side note, when did armadillos start existing in mid-Missouri? Thanks for nothing, Global Warming. Along with the other terrible side effects that our planet's rising temperature has caused, armadillos have moved to Missouri and it TOTALLY grosses me out. I don't know why, but every time I see a dead armadillo, I get really creeped out and a chill runs down my spine (I've never seen a live one, but I bet it would happen then, too). Armadillos scare me, and this is why:
1) They look so mean! I tend to be scared of things with armor-like bodies. You know, things like dinosaurs, dragons, armadillos and roly-poly's. Yes, roly-polys. Don't judge me. When I was little, someone told me that there are two types of roly-poly and one type is highly poisonous and the only way to tell the difference is to see if it is somewhat flat. Now, I don't know if that is true, but in my head it is. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it was my older brother, Andy, who told me that and he also told me that if I ever blew a bubble and could see the reflection of a blue piano in it, I would die immediately, so every time I would blow bubbles, I would look in each of them to make sure they didn't have a picture of a piano in them. Maybe I should have used a little more discretion when taking advice from Andy. I swear, my tendency to trust will be my downfall. Maybe I should have been more like Grammy when she was little. She said that her brother, Carl, used to tease her all the time and she would just let it all build up inside her until one day she would snap. One time Carl was teasing her while she was doing her homework so she turned around and stabbed him in the shoulder with a pencil. She got in lots of trouble for that one. She also said that Carl had this globe in his room that she used to hit him with; "I would just pick it up and whop him with it so it always had this huge dent in one side."
2) When I see a dead armadillo on the side of the road, I can practically feel the diseases coming from it. Maybe it stems from the fact that they look scary, but I think armadillos have more diseases than other roadkill. The germs and deadly virus' practically seep out of each fold in their armor. It's the truth. Everyone knows that cute animals don't carry diseases. They're too fluffy.
3) Someone told me they hiss. Imagine walking along the road and turning to see a hissing armadillo running toward you. Yeah, I know. I'm going to have nightmares, too.

Anyway, back to Slytherin. In the past two weeks, I have run over two snakes and I'm scarred for life. The problem with hitting snakes is that there is no way to avoid them because believe me, I totally would have if I could. They pretty much span the width of my car which means straddling them is out of the question. So, if you've never hit a snake with your car, this is what happens: You're driving along, minding your own business, when in the distance you can see something long on the road. Hoping it is just a stick, you keep going and realize it is a snake. Being the safe driver you are, you start screaming and take your feet off the pedals, hoping your car will magically lift off the ground because if it doesn't, you'll surely hit the snake and it will definitely fly up into your open window to latch onto your neck and cause instant death. But, as gravity will have it, your car doesn't lift up and you hear it thump under your tires. In your rear-view window, you can see it writhing all over the road behind you. Afterward, you might feel like vomiting, and that is completely normal.
When I told Grammy that I ran over some snakes and how traumatizing it was, she said: "Well, good! You did the world a favor!" Then we continued to talk about how snakes are Satan in animal form. She kept telling me: "Anything that slithers around like that can't be good."

Second reason: The other day, Grammy and I were cleaning out birdhouses in the backyard because there were sparrows living in them and Grammy wanted bluebirds to live in them. This is my least favorite activity at Grammy's so far because it is DISGUSTING. Bird nests are really gross and filled with random assortments of feathers, yard debris and salmonella. Anyway, on our way back to the house, we were walking through the yard and I saw a snake lying there with his head sticking up, so naturally I screamed, then Grammy screamed and after a few seconds of jumping up and down, we ran to the picnic table to seek higher ground. I was just going to leave it there and run inside, but Grammy said we're not leaving it because it was facing the house and we didn't want it to come and get us, so we started grabbing gardening tools and throwing them at the snake, in hopes of making it slither away toward the field behind our house, but it wouldn't move. When we ran out of tools to throw, Grammy went and found lots of bricks so we stood on the benches of the picnic table and threw them at it, but even when I hit it, all it did was bounce into the air and then become completely still again. And not a dead kind of still. More of an "attack-mode" kind of still. Around this time, the two boys working at the farm behind our yard saw us (or maybe they heard us yelling death threats and were worried about our lives/sanity). Either way, they came over and Grammy ran up to them and asked them how they feel about snakes. Luckily, they felt fine with snakes and came over and stomped on it with their protective footwear. Turns out it was a copperhead. Awesome. Good thing Grammy and I didn't try to be too brave or we might be lying in a hospital bed somewhere. They picked it up by its tail and started carrying it off to throw into a field, but right at that moment, Grammy came running from the house carrying a shovel and yelling: "Come back here! I want that thing dead! We don't want it coming back to get us!" They beheaded it.

Anyway, my snake encounters have led me to believe the sorting hat would have placed me in Slytherin. Actually, maybe they mean that I would have been that valiant fighter that seeks truth and justice in a world filled with evil, slithering deceit. I'm not supposed to be in Slytherin! I'm Harry Potter! And Grammy is Captain Planet! And when our powers combine...

4 comments:

  1. I reallly dislike snakes...it would be a sad day in my harry potter world if I got put in Slytherin....I bet I would be Ravenclaw or something and you would be in Slytern and we would never be friends... :(

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  2. I hate snakes....ew...gross...yuck

    I never read any of the Harry Potter books so I have no idea what you are talking about with the Slytherin and Ravenclaw stuff :)

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  3. There aren't snakes in New Zealand. We're all Gryffindors.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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