Cool Hand Luke

When I was little, I prayed every night when I lay down to go to sleep. Most nights I fell asleep before I finished. I thanked God for all of my family individually and then I thanked Him for my friends. I thanked God for my pets and for all the squirrels and rabbits. I also thanked God for my stuffed animals because I believed they were real. I had ten stuffed animals, so it took a while for me to go through the list. After a while I would start naming them and resort to saying, “Thank You for…well, You know.” I soon started referring to my stuffed animals collectively as my You-Knows, and I would just pray, “Thank You for my You-Knows.”

The You-Knows each had a name and a distinct personality in my mind. I talked to them often. I used to try to sleep with all of them, but I always felt guilty because in the morning some of them would be on the floor. I reconciled this by working out a system in which one stuffed animal got to sleep in the bed each night. There was a precise rotation and a system worked out. Every morning I would remove the stuffed animal I had just slept with from the bed. I would make the bed and then I would place the next stuffed animal in the rotation on the bed. It was like a bonus treat that they got to hang out on my bed all day. The rest of the time they were organized in the corner of my room

On one fine morning, I was preparing for a hard day at school—probably kindergarten or first grade—and I made up my bed as usual. When I was finished I walked to the corner of the room and reached for Papa Bear, whose turn it was to hang out on the bed. Just as my little hands were about lift Papa Bear up, a green snake slithered around his throat. I totally flipped.

I ran to the kitchen to my mom, insisting that there was a snake in my room. She reluctantly followed me in, thinking I was playing a joke on her. She totally flipped, too.  We both ran out screaming.

Fortunately, my mom’s mother, who I called Granny, was there to save the day. She was in her 80’s and she had lived a hard life on the farm. Snakes were nothing new to her. She had once killed a copperhead that had gotten into her house.  She calmly walked in the room and chided, declaring, “It’s just a little grass snake.” (No matter what kind of snake it was, it freaked me out. I’ve been scared of snakes ever since.) Granny scooped the snake up with a little shovel, took it outside, and smashed its head with her foot. Poetic.

And that’s the story of my You-Knows. That’s also the story of why I hate snakes. The End.