This has been on my mind for a while now. I've always had an interest in reptiles and I think they are amazing. I haven't always been comfortable around them. I grew up with a mother that put it into me that all snakes were spontaneous and they didn't make good pets. I remember having small red ear slider turtles (2) as a youngin (too young to do any research on the animal myself; I think 3-4 years old) and we found out they needed a special type of lighting. My parents went to a special reptile store to find that out. The lady we talked to (she had gauges which I thought was cool) had a pet snake. I remember her talking about how the snake wasn't that bad to my mom while my mom had a bad reaction to it.

I got really into snakes last year. I was obsessed with snakes. It like sprung out of nowhere. I simply find them amazing. I found out about ball pythons and found this site and all. I got my snake on May 30th, 2012. 80 grams of sweetness (okay, she was a little feisty than that). I had never held a snake before. I had touched them before on the side. But I somehow found myself scared of holding a snake with a snake in a box from the mail in front of me with nobody else in the house that was going to pick it up. (I just ended up putting the entire bag in the cage! LOL!) I created a thread here talking about it and the replies were that I just needed to pick her up. I grabbed my trusty gardening glove, made sure I was alone, and picked her up (after the allotted settle down time of a week.) My hand was shaking THE ENTIRE TIME.

Now I realize my ball python is the sweetest thing ever. I feel confident handling her. I held a small boa recently too. I didn't really know how to deal with its activity at first, but the second time around was much smoother. So I've held two snakes in total. I'd feel okay about handling more/different species now.

What really spurred this post though was something that happened recently. I was on the floor with my ball python (she loves to find cracks and crevices in the couch) and a customer walked by [home business]. She didn't notice the snake but her husband did. I heard later ask him "AND IT WAS REAL?" I overheard and came out to where they could see me and I said, "She's real sweet. Do you want to touch her?" She declined rapidly. I don't think that was the best way to show her that my ball was not a monster. When walking back she walked around the perimeter of the living room.

Additionally, almost every one of my friends/family has been all "Snake! Ekk! Keep it away!" when I even mention her.

tl;dr
How would you suppose would be the best way for a common person to open a dialogue with people that snakes aren't monsters?