Maybe it was because a friend killed a rattlesnake on the dim trail I often walk on in the dark with no light on my way to where a certain gobbler likes to roost. Or maybe it was because I was just sitting there in the pine straw thinking, halfway down that trail waiting for the sky to lighten the ground or a turkey to gobble. Or maybe it was because I always think about snakes during turkey season when the nights get warm in April. Anyway, I got to wondering if snakes ever get lost.

You know, as slow as snakes have to move, if one should take a right off the top of a ridge instead of an intended left, when he or she arrived at the bottom and found itself in the wrong valley, it could be depressing.

Now you take a snake out just gliding along. Where is it going? Is it really lost and don’t know it, or does it know it is lost, or does it just plain not care? It can’t see very far from its low position so it can’t have a visual goal. Do they just slither along hoping someone will step close enough with a big, juicy leg so they can sink their fangs into it?

Such endeavors as courting and seeking food must be frustrating for snakes. Crawling along for days with no one to say hello to could make for lonely days and even warped personalities.

I suppose boy snakes court girl snakes. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any little snakes. Well, how do the two meet, I wonder? A guy snake could crawl the length of the equator and not find a girl snake of his species. You know, they could pass within feet of each other dozens of times and never know it if the grass was over two inches high.

When a male snake actually runs into a female snake of his kind (don’t ask me how they can tell) I’ll bet neither is fussy about the other’s looks. Stuff like grooming, posture, nervous twitches and facial hair surely must become irrelevant. Even cultural tastes and religious preferences probably are not factors in the developing relationships following these chance meetings between young, unattached snakes.

And just what does a snake think about during all that crawling around? I mean besides young boy snakes thinking about young girl snakes and vice versa. In other words what do mature snakes and senior citizen snakes think about, what with no taxes or car payments or eight to five jobs or Ora-fix or Metamucil to worry about?

Sometimes I worry about snakes. I can think of only a couple of persons who are friends with snakes. And I worry about those people too.