Both my father and my boyfriend are scared to death of them. My boyfriend is slowly coming around. I've been trying to get him to hold my little BP hatchling but so far he's just been trying to manage to stay in the same room with her! At one point he almost worked up the courage to touch her with a finger while I was holding her, but he chickened out. He does make friends with the mice I bring home to feed her, though. We were having a conversation about what to buy each other for our 4 year anniversary that's coming up and the first thing he said was, "Please tell me you don't want another snake..."

My father will probably never change because we don't live in the same state anymore, so he doesn't ever see my tame snake. He only sees the ones on our farm, which like to hide in the barns and stuff like that and scare him. He actually does tolerate the rat snakes and other non-poisonous ones because...they eat rats The only snakes I'd say he *hates* are water moccasins because he has been bitten by one and because they're all over where we live, so it's a constant fear for him. I understand that more than people who just have an irrational fear (like my boyfriend!) because they've never had a good experience with snakes and only heard bad things.