I’m home. However, I’m not going to write about the last month for a few days, because it’s too depressing. I have to come to terms with the fact that my real life does not involve complimentary hot chocolate, valet, personal ski carriers, and ass wipers (Just joking. Girls don’t do that sort of thing). So, instead, on about the 999th mile of my drive yesterday, I remembered a certain drive back from Omaha with my sister.

Now, there are very few things that I hate. Some of these include:

1. Repetitive noises
2. Raw tomatoes
3. Yellow mustard
4. Snakes and snake-like things (Not what you’re thinking…)

Simply telling people to stop chewing, breathing, etc. takes care of the repetitive noise problem, and I’m not completely offended in the presence of mustard and tomatoes. If those things are sitting on a table, staring at me, I’ll live. I just don’t want them in my mouth. But, SNAKES! No. Die.

In fact, I can remember the exact moment my hatred for those armless, legless bastards began. I went to preschool at the Des Moines Science Center, which meant that I spent afternoons exploring science-y things in between eating Manila paper, because I thought it was vanilla paper (true story). One day, I pulled myself away from drawing/snack time and was ushered into the “animal” room. In this room, my classmates and I sat in a circle, and our teachers passed around an animal. On this particular afternoon, it was a snake. From what I can remember, the snake moved in my hands, it felt nasty, so I threw that f’er across the room. I hate snakes now.

Anyway…

My sister and I were driving back from an afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska, and we stopped at a gas station right off the highway. My sister was driving, and I was sitting in the passenger seat with no shoes. Therefore, she had to pump the gas. Also, because I’m a year older, and she has to respect her elders. While she was pumping the gas, I opened my door to pretend like I was helping, or something. At that moment, she screamed and jumped away from the pump. She also yelled at me to shut my door. I think it went something like this:

Sister: EEEK. Shut your door.

Me: ?

Sister: SNAAAAKKKKE

Me, looking down: EEEK, SNAAAAKKKKKE

Sister: I’m going to go find a shovel and kill it.

{Sister goes inside and returns with a young guy}

After staring at the creature for all of .001 seconds, I was positive that it was a rattlesnake. In Iowa. WTF? The guy my sister found apparently watched way too many episodes of the Crocodile Hunter and found the prospect of rattlesnake wrangling exhilarating. The kid maneuvered around the beast, caught him by the neck (Or, whatever a neck is on a snake. An entire snake is pretty much a neck. Also, seriously, WTF?), and threw him somewhere in the grass. He proceeded to look at us like we were crazy:

Guy: What? There are worse things in Iowa.

Sister and Me, in perfect unison: LIKE WHAT? Name one thing.

Guy: …. Um, things.

Also, if I wasn’t a lazy POS and decided to pump the gas, I most definitely would have stepped on the snake. Basically, I’d be dead right now. Okay, maybe not dead, just temporarily less alive. I hate snakes.

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3. Future Plans