Everyone has had cottonmouth before...like the morning after you've had way to many cold beverages the night before...but that is not what I'm talking about...I'm talking about a pissed off Water Moccasin.

When I was a young kid, we had a pretty good-sized stream over the hill in the neighborhood. The boys and me dammed it up, and created a three / four foot pool about 30X30 feet. It was in the middle of the woods, and that was one of our places. We had a tree house and everything that goes with it. Very cool. We even had codes.

All of us had our own pellet guns, but they don't do you much good when you're swimming naked or not. They were all on the bank.

Anyway, we're all naked splashing around in our private lake when Jimbo yells, "snake over there". I looked just in time to see a big-ass, 3-4 foot Cottonmouth slide off the bank into the water. This fucker was not afraid of us at all...in fact; I think it was pissed off because it started swimming straight towards me. They're much faster than you think. I'm backing up towards the bank as fast as possible, but realized I couldn't make it before this fucking crazy snake made it to me. I swear to the Maker I was actually worried. I thought to myself, "where am I going to be bitten, and will it kill me?

If anything you experience goes into slow motion...think fast, because it is just an illusion.

Some of my buddies had made it to the bank...they realized the predicament I was in, and while they were grabbing their guns...Billy tossed a Louisville Slugger to me.

Thank you Billy...you bought me all the time I needed. I grabbed that bat and started swinging like a wild man, all the while trying to get out of the water.

This damn snake was coming after my ass. I was his or her closest target.

Seriously, I was really worried.

I yelled, throw me a baseball glove.

The next thing I heard was five or six shots, then pump...pump...pump...pump...reload...and more shots.

To this day, I cannot believe that my buddies were able to shoot a fucking Water Moccasin, swimming zig-zag for my ass...with pellet guns. I cannot believe they hit it.

All in all, I say they shot that bastard about thirty times.

Hell, after we fished it out, and it was way long dead...I shot that fucker myself...just because I knew the code.

We skinned it and hung it above the entrance to our tree house.

To this day, I believe Jimbo has it ...problem is...Jimbo died, so I'm gonna have to get up with his sister and see if we can find it. This is something that needs to be hanging in the Brier Patch.

Bottom line: from a child's point of view...this was one of the first times I understood "FEAR"