Ophidiophobia & Weeding For Dollars

I love gardening. I love it so much, I do my own and I do other people's. My gardening work for others I call Weeding For Dollars. And I earn every nickle. Every season, somebody says to me "Oh, you're so lucky! I would love to work with the flowers all day!" It's not that I'm complaining (well, yes, I am), but they have no idea what they are talking about. First of all, when you do it for other people, you can't just decide after a couple of hours to knock off when your back is killing you and go have lemonade. You have to continue until the work is done. No matter how hot it may be, how many Black Fly bites you have, rashes, Poison Ivy, leaking hoses: you must continue. Today, it was snakes. Mind you, I'm not afraid of snakes. I've caught many of them by hand. I get a certain satisfaction when I get one behind the head so it can't bite me and feel its sinewy body wrap around my wrist, tongue flicking, staring me in the face. But that's on my terms. I do not like being sneaked up on, or 'snaked' up on, as it were. In the garden where I worked today, there was a nest of Garter snakes. I saw six of them. Though they were all Garter snakes, each one was distinct enough that I gave them names: Mo, Curly, Larry, Groucho, Harpo and Zeppo. I don't know what gender they were, but that seemed to cover all their behavioral bases. They dodged, slithered, writhed, curled and slipped around the peonies and astilbes while I worked. Repeatedly startling me, they kicked my anxiety disorder into high gear. Gardening is very hard work, but it's never been as nerve wracking as it was today! I may have advanced my position from a run of the mill herpetophobe to a full blown ophidiophobe.