Bravado Can Only Get You So Far

Back in my reckless youth I went on a few really cool trips. I battled waves on a tiny schooner in the waters off Nova Scotia, swam through shark-infested channels on a remote island of the Bahamas, camped near absurdly prolific spiders up in Canada, and bushwacked through trails in middle Appalachia. I fancied myself a true adventurer. And while I thoroughly enjoyed doing these activities at the time, I am very happy that they are in the past. For you see, the past is a delightful thing you can play around with and mold to how you see fit. The distance between the time of the event and now provides a safe comfort zone that takes away the sting of the very real danger and the youthful ebullience that will probably get you into trouble in the real world.

There is something profoundly satisfying about telling tales of death-defying danger and intrigue when you yourself happen to be wearing your favorite tee shirt and sipping on a Corona. There is no secret as to why Man Vs. Wild with Bear Grylls does so well on the Discovery Channel. And while I sincerely hope my future holds many more adventures for me, at the moment I am perfectly content to live in an urban center where the biggest risk of my day involves getting hit in the face by an over-excited toddler. In addition, this downshift in real-life risk makes the "dangerous" adventures that beckon around every corner at the Aquarium seem that much more dramatic.

One of these adventures involves a snake. A few months ago at the Aquarium a mature anaconda, Kathleen, gave birth to 16 squirmy baby snakes. (Initially my boss said that there were 17 snakes accounted for, but with the official count topping off at 16 he just told me that I should be on the lookout around the gallery where I worked. I am pretty sure he was kidding.) While doing some research at the desk in the Freshwater area, my friend Jimmy came over to ask me if I wanted to play with the baby snakes. It helped them get comfortable and acclimate to human contact. (What, this doesn't happen to you at work?)

I needed to stretch my legs, so I welcomed the change of pace and wandered off towards the closet in the intern lounge that is currently home to three baby anacondas. The snakes are inventively named A, B, and C. I'm told that they won't be named until they are shipped out to their next home, another aquarium where they will hopefully be loved enough to named. The babies are still three to four feet in length but nowhere near their mother, who clocks in at 15 feet. "Babies" is a relative term.

"Want to hold her?" Jimmy asked, baby "A" held ever so gently in his hands. Her tongue flickered a little too much for my pleasure, and I was sure she was staring straight at me, taunting me. Jimmy told me that she was the tamest of all the baby snakes, and therefore the least likely to strike. Her eyes suggested otherwise.

"No thanks, I just wanted to see her." I lied, thinking to myself that simply being in baby A's presence surely was enough of a risk for one day. But then I thought over the fact that saying no to Jimmy was, in effect, denying the full advantage of my aquarium experience. My friend Ko always talks about the importance of being, as she calls it, "open to the universe." How many times in my life will someone ask me if I want to handle an anaconda? I could probably count it on one hand. Maybe one finger. So against an instinctual yearning to walk away, I forced myself to walk forward. "Actually, sure." I told him. "Why not."

Though I wouldn't necessarily want to have a sleepover with one, I wouldn't say that I had a big fear of snakes. It's more like a healthy respect. I am quietly fascinated by an anaconda's amazing musculature, its ability to eat a capybara (fun fact: we feed them guinea pigs and baby bunnies) and, of course, the alien-like tongue flickering. This fascination is the same kind of fascination that one might have with a tsunami. While I would prefer to not be intimate with one, I think they are fantastically captivating. But I just prefer to be fascinated by them when there is a distance of at least ten feet or more between us. More so with the snake. That's just how I roll.

Immediately my heart switched from reticent exhilaration to adrenaline-pumping terror. My thought process, though colorfully punctuated with silent shrieks of nonsensical horror, went more or less like this:

"This is gonna be pretty awesome. It's totally no big deal... Oh. Oh. I don't like this anymore. I was just kidding. I was really just kidding. Ok ok don't freak out, just play it cool. It's just a baby. But maybe babies can't control what they bite. What if my hands smell like food. Does my hand smell like lunch? No no no, just play it cool and breathe. Snakes can sense fear just like bees. Oh my god, my heart is starting to pound. Stop it, heart. Stop it! The snake can sense that. Oh my god, can the snake sense that? Deep breaths. Oh my god it's going up my arm, oh my god oh my god. Dear lord just stop freaking out oh my god it's squeezing my upper arm oh my god oh my god it's looking at me play it cool play it cool playitcoolplayitcool. I can't do this oh my god I will start going to church again, just please do not bite me pleasedonotbiteme pleasedonotbiteme."

This inner monologue took approximately 10 seconds, or .42 seconds longer than Usain Bolt ran the 100m in 1999. That's fast. Throughout those absurdly long ten seconds, I tried to maintain my composure as best as I could. Freaking out doesn't help anyone, and in the world of unpaid internships an intern that's freaking out because of a snake isn't exactly the one that you want to bring on a collecting trip to Brazil. So I tried to joke around with Jimmy. I talked about snake maintenance as though I had studied the subject. I used a lot of unfamiliar words and may have broken into tongues at some point. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. I was just desperately trying to convince myself that I wasn't holding a snake. And the snake that I definitely wasn't holding definitely wouldn't bite me. But there is a fine line between being cool with something, just trying to play it cool, and then crossing over into the realm of not caring how calm and collected you seem anymore. I gave myself away a little when I practically yelled (much too loudly for the little closet) "Jimmy, just take it away takeitaway takeitawaytakeitaway." I know I scared him a little bit. But at that moment I just wanted it off me, so I could resume being fascinated safely from a distance.

The more I learn about wildlife, the world at large, and my own fallibility, the more I just want to stay inside on my couch, safe and cuddly under my snuggie*. It's nice to be able to say that I handled an anaconda, but the anaconda-free zone of my apartment feels like pure heaven right now. At least, it will feel this way until the horse of adventure beckons again, at which point I will probably join that collecting trip to Brazil. Where there most definitely will be anacondas. But an adventure is an adventure, and you can't exactly say no to Brazil.


*I do not have a snuggie. Yet.