From as long as I could remember until I was much too old I had a fear of snakes. I never was bitten, nor do I feel that I experienced anything in my past that would make me afraid of snakes. I was never really scared of bites or anything, just the snake being near me was a stressful circumstance. This got to me the most when I was a boy scout and we slept in the woods. Funny enough, I wasn't worried whenever I slept on the ground in a sleeping bag. It was when I was on a cot that let us sleep off of the ground that I became the most fearful. There was something about the image of a snake winding up the posts of the cot to come 'get me' and I would not be able to sleep.
All we had in our own area in Florida, where I lived for most of my childhood, was the Common Garter Snake (http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Thamnophis_sirtalis/) which were small, are not vemonous, and in fact don't bite. I love snakes now, but I was terrified as a child.
Their unnatural movement and their speed and unpredictability are what give me the hebeges. I like them as long as they are in a sealed box.
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